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Eel, to Fricassee

A French-style eel stew with butter, wine, stock, onions, parsley, and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eel, to Fricassee

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin and notch the eels from end to end.

  2. Cut the eels into 4 or 5 pieces each.

  3. Soak the eel pieces in spring water for 30 minutes.

  4. Dry the eel pieces with a cloth.

Make the fricassee

  1. Melt fresh butter in a pan.

  2. Add the eels, onions, and chopped parsley to the pan. Shake the pan over heat for a few minutes.

  3. Add white wine and stock to the pan. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

  4. Stir in egg yolks, a little grated nutmeg, and parsley. Simmer for 4 to 5 minutes.

  5. Squeeze in the juice of a Seville orange.

  6. Garnish with lemon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eels
Firm, mild flesh that holds its shape and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy coating as they gently set with heat.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma and helps build the flavour of the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour from the onions and parsley.
Seville orange juice
Brightens the sauce with acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Yolks are a thickener that can scramble if the liquid is too hot or they are added too fast. Keep the heat low and stir steadily so the sauce turns silky rather than grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, parsley, white wine, pepper, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, parsley, white wine, pepper, egg, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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