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Eels, Mayonnaise Of
Skin and empty an eel of about two pounds and a half weight, and cut it into lengths of two inches and a half. Throw the pieces into salt and water, and, when thoroughly cleansed, drain and dry them. Place them in neat layers, with spice between each layer, in a potting-dish. Pour a mixture of vinegar and water, with a little dissolved isinglass in it over the contents of the pot, and stew or bake in a moderate oven till tender. When sent to table, fill a dish with the pieces of eel, and pour over them as much mayonnaise sauce as will cover them; decorate according to taste, and surround the dish with lumps of jelly taken from the potting-dish. Time, about one hour to pot.
A Victorian cold fish dish: eel braised in spiced vinegar with isinglass, chilled so the liquor sets, then masked with mayonnaise and ringed with chopped jelly. The whole point is the setting liquor, so the finished dish must be thoroughly cold before it is coated.
- Chill before saucingThe eel has to be cold and the cooking liquor set to a firm jelly before the mayonnaise goes near it. Warm eel melts the jelly and the sauce slides off; refrigerate the potting dish for several hours, or overnight.
- Moderate ovenConventionally rendered as about 325-350F / 165-175C; a lidded dish suits the method. The recipe's own "about one hour" suits 2.5-inch lengths of a 2.5 lb eel; the flesh should come away from the backbone readily.
- IsinglassA gelatin obtained from sturgeon swim bladders, sold in leaf and shred form in the period. Powdered or leaf gelatin is the direct substitute; eel is itself very gelatinous, and a strong braising liquor from bones and skin will often set unaided.
- "Potting-dish"A deep, straight-sided earthenware dish used for potted meat and fish, closed with a lid. Any lidded casserole or terrine of similar depth works.
- "Spice" unspecifiedCassell's leaves this open. A plausible mixture for eel would be black peppercorns, allspice, a blade of mace, a bay leaf and a little cayenne.
- Vinegar and waterNo proportion is given. Around one part vinegar to three parts water gives a liquor sharp enough to season without stiffening the fish; more vinegar takes it towards collared and pickled eel.
- Buying and skinningEel is usually sold already killed and gutted, and a fishmonger will skin it on request, which is worth asking for. Eel blood contains an irritant protein that is destroyed by heat, so avoid tasting the raw fish or the unheated marinade.
- YieldA 2.5 lb eel yields four to six portions as a cold first course. Serve within a day or two, kept refrigerated, and cut the jelly into cubes only when arranging the dish.
Eels were cheap, abundant and central to British river fishing well into the nineteenth century, and London in particular ate them in enormous quantities, jellied, stewed and in pies. Because eel flesh is so rich in collagen, its cooking liquor sets on its own, which is why the fish so often appears in "potted" and "collared" forms in books of this period, when jelly served the double purpose of a garnish and a preservative seal. What marks this recipe as late Victorian rather than Georgian is the mayonnaise: cold masked dishes dressed with mayonnaise or sauce verte came into British kitchens through French professional practice in the second half of the century, and Cassell's, first issued in the 1870s, sits precisely at the point where a homely potted eel could be finished as a dining-room entree. Wild European eel is now assessed as critically endangered, and most eel on sale today is farmed, so this is one of the many nineteenth-century commonplaces that has become a luxury.