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Stewed Eels

A dish of eels stewed with butter, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and clean the eels, removing all fat, and cut into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan without browning it.

Cook

  1. Add the eels, sprinkle with onion and parsley, cover, and place in a vessel of cold water.

  2. Cook gently over steady heat for 1.5 hours after boiling begins until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove eels with a slotted spoon to a warm dish.

  2. Stir pepper, salt, and flour (mixed with cold water) into the remaining liquid.

  3. Bring to a boil and pour over the eels before serving.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
The main protein; it becomes tender and firm when cooked gently in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat; melting it without browning keeps the flavor mild.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a lightly thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Cook gently after boiling begins. Vigorous boiling can toughen and break up delicate eel flesh, so the liquid should stay at a steady, gentle simmer until the eels are tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, pepper, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, flour. 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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