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EELS (a la Tartare)
Skin and cleanse two or three eels, cut them into pieces of two inches, and let these lie half an hour in salt and water. Take equal quantities of red wine and stock broth (a gill of each); simmer the pieces of eel in this until nearly done. When cool dip each section separately into oiled butter or beaten egg, cover with bread-crumbs, and broil or fry till all are nicely browned. Serve with tartar sauce on the dish (see TARTAR SAUCE). Bread crusts browned in the oven, and then pounded fine, make the best crumbs for eels. Time, twenty-five minutes to simmer; to fry, five minutes. Sufficient, two pounds, for five or six persons.
A two-stage method: the eel is poached in a wine-and-stock bath, then crumbed and browned. Nothing here is difficult, but the sequence matters and the quantities need translating.
- A gillHalf a cup, so the poaching liquid is one cup total — half red wine, half stock. That is barely enough to cover 2 lb of eel in a wide pan; use a narrow saucepan or turn the pieces halfway.
- Oiled butterMelted butter, ideally clarified so the milk solids do not scorch under the broiler. It is offered as an alternative to beaten egg, not in addition — egg gives a firmer crust, butter a lighter one.
- The soakHalf an hour in salted water is generally held to firm the flesh and draw off any remaining surface slipperiness after skinning. Rinse and pat thoroughly dry afterwards or the crumbs will slide off.
- Poaching timeTwenty-five minutes suits thick pieces from a large eel. Eel is fatty and forgiving, but sections from a small one will be done in ten to twelve minutes; take them out while still slightly underdone, since they finish in the pan.
- Cool before crumbingThis is the hinge. Warm poached eel is slack and will shed its coating; chilling the pieces until firm, ideally in the refrigerator, is what lets the crumb crust hold and brown in the five minutes given for frying.
- The crumbsOven-dried crusts pounded fine are coarser and drier than commercial breadcrumbs and brown better with fatty fish. Panko is the nearest modern equivalent.
- SourcingEuropean eel is critically endangered and trade in it is restricted under CITES; American and Japanese eel are the usual substitutes, though both are also listed as endangered, so farmed or certified stock is the only defensible choice. A fishmonger may skin and section it on request. Eel blood contains a protein irritant that is destroyed by heat, which is why eel is never served raw.
- YieldTwo pounds of prepared eel for five or six persons, with tartar sauce spooned onto the dish rather than served alongside.