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Eels, Plain Broiled
In order to kill eels pierce the spinal marrow, near the back part of the skull, with a sharp instrument. Skin, and remove the head and tail; cut into pieces about three inches long; season with pepper and salt, lemon juice and two spoonfuls of oil; few minutes before dinner, broil them of a light color, dish them up on a napkin with fried parsley, and serve with tomato or Tartare sauce, in a sauce boat separately.
A short, essentially French treatment of a fish almost no American home cook buys whole any more. The instructions assume a live eel and a coal-fired gridiron; both need translating.
- Skip the killing and skinningOrder eel already dressed from a fishmonger or an Asian market, where it is sold skinned and cut, or as whole fresh eel that the counter will clean. Eel skin is tough and slippery and the traditional method involves nailing the head to a board.
- Eel bloodFresh eel serum contains a protein toxin that irritates if it gets into a cut or an eye. It is destroyed by heat, so cooked eel is harmless, but rinse the cut pieces and wash hands and board before touching your face.
- "Broil" means direct heatIn this period broiling was done on a gridiron over live coals. Use a grill or an oven broiler at its highest setting, rack close to the element. "Of a light color" means golden, not charred.
- TimingThree-inch pieces of eel take roughly 4 to 5 minutes a side, to an internal 145F. Eel is very fatty, so the flesh stays moist, but expect flare-ups from dripping oil.
- "Two spoonfuls of oil"Read this as two tablespoons of olive oil. The recipe gives no quantity of eel, so treat the oil as a marinade and basting medium rather than a measured element.
- Fried parsleyFlat-leaf sprigs, dried thoroughly, dropped into 350F oil for about 20 seconds until crisp and still green. Wet parsley will spit violently.
- Serving on a napkinA folded linen napkin on the platter absorbed grease from broiled or fried fish. A rack over a warm platter does the same job and looks less alarming.
- Yield and sourcingAbout 1/2 lb of dressed eel per person, so 2 lb serves four. American and European eel stocks are both under pressure and trade in European eel is restricted; buy from a supplier who can tell you the source.
Eel was standard fish-market goods in Britain and the eastern United States well into the twentieth century: cheap, abundant, oily enough to broil or smoke without drying, and sold live from tanks because eels keep poorly once dead. That is why the recipe opens with instructions for killing one rather than for cooking it. The garnish and service here — fried parsley, a napkin-lined dish, tartare sauce sent to table in a separate boat — are the marks of the French restaurant style that American household books were busily borrowing. Eels are catadromous, spawning far out in the Atlantic and running up rivers as young elvers, and the fishery has always depended on that migration; the collapse of eel populations in more recent decades is the main reason a dish once considered plain and homely now reads as exotic.