Home › Fish, Oysters, Etc › Eels A La Tartare
Eels A La Tartare
Cut the eels in three-inch lengths or truss them whole, in a circular form; put into a stewpan with sliced carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf and thyme, a few pepper corns and salt; moisten with a gill of vinegar and little water; put on the fire to boil, and when done, set aside to cool in their liquor; then drain, trim, roll in egg and bread crumbs; fry a pretty color, dish with fried parsley, and send to table with some Tartare sauce in a sauce boat.
A two-stage French treatment: the eel is first poached in an acidulated court-bouillon, then crumbed and fried. The poaching liquor and the cooling in it are what make the dish work, so neither step can be skipped.
- Let it cool in the liquorThis is the hinge. Eel is fatty and gelatinous, and cooling it in its own poaching liquid firms the flesh so it can be handled, trimmed and crumbed without collapsing. Rushing it hot to the frying pan gives ragged pieces that shed their coating.
- A gill of vinegarHalf a cup. Top up with water just to cover the eel — this is a court-bouillon, not a stew, and the pieces should be barely submerged.
- Buying eelFreshwater eel is sold live or freshly killed at Asian and some Italian fishmongers, often skinned to order. European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is critically endangered and its trade is restricted; American or Japanese eel, including farmed unagi, is the usual substitute, though both of those are also listed as threatened. Ask for it skinned and gutted.
- Poaching timeThe recipe says only "when done." Three-inch cut sections need roughly 10-15 minutes at a bare simmer, depending on thickness; the flesh should come away from the backbone. A hard boil toughens it.
- Trussing wholeCurling a whole small eel into a ring and tying it was a common period presentation, and the recipe gives it as an alternative to three-inch lengths. A skewer through the coil may hold the shape better than string during poaching.
- FryingFry in oil at 350-375F until the crumbs are deep gold, two to three minutes. The eel is already cooked, so this is colour only.
- Fried parsleyFlat-leaf parsley, dried thoroughly, dropped into the same fat for a few seconds until it stops spitting and turns brittle-bright. Wet parsley in hot fat spatters violently.
- Raw eel bloodFresh eel serum contains a protein toxin that irritates skin and eyes; it is destroyed by heat, so a cooked dish is safe. Handle raw eel with care, avoid touching your face, and wash boards and hands.
- YieldA 2 lb eel serves three or four as a main course with the sauce. Tartare sauce here is the classic mayonnaise base with capers, gherkins and herbs — make it with pasteurised egg if serving anyone vulnerable.
Eel à la tartare is a piece of standard nineteenth-century French restaurant practice that passed straight into English and American household books: poach in court-bouillon, crumb, fry, serve with a cold caper-and-gherkin mayonnaise. The name is generally traced to the same vague culinary orientalism that gave us steak tartare and sauce tartare, with no real connection to the Tatars. Eel was cheap and abundant in the period — in London it was street food, sold jellied, stewed or in pies — and cookbooks of the 1900s treat it as an everyday fish rather than a delicacy. That has reversed completely: European eel stocks collapsed in the late twentieth century, and what was once the poor cook's fish is now expensive and tightly regulated. The elaborate crumbing and the sauce boat in this version mark it as the genteel end of eel cookery, aimed at a household that wanted the fishmonger's bargain to arrive at table looking French.