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Eels, Stewed
Divide four large eels into pieces of about two inches, and season them with pepper, salt, and a little pounded mace. Lay them in a deep dish with a little veal stock, a bundle of sweet herbs, and a very little chopped parsley sprinkled between the layers. Tie down with a paper, first putting some small bits of butter on the top. Stewed eels are always best when done in a moderate oven. Time, one hour or more. Probable cost, 6d. to 1s. per pound.
A plain oven-braise that depends almost entirely on the quality of the eel and the stock. The instructions are terse even by Cassell's standards, so most of the work is filling in what a Victorian cook would have taken as read.
- Buy it cleanedThe recipe assumes eels arrive whole and are skinned, gutted and cut at home. Ask the fishmonger to kill, skin and gut them; eel skin is tough and slippery and the flesh continues to twitch for some time after the fish is dead. Fresh eel blood and serum contain a toxin that irritates skin and eyes, which is destroyed by cooking but is a reason not to handle raw eel with cuts on your hands.
- SourcingThe European eel is now critically endangered and its international trade is restricted; wild stocks in North America are also under pressure. Much of what is sold is farmed eel grown on from caught elvers, often Japanese eel. Any firm, fatty fish that tolerates long moist cooking will work in the same braise.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. The dish is a covered braise rather than a roast, so a lower setting of 325F also works and gives a gentler result.
- "Tie down with a paper"A sheet of parchment or greaseproof paper stretched over the dish and tied with string under the rim, the standard Victorian substitute for a lid. A tight lid or foil does the same job; the point is to trap steam so the eel braises rather than dries.
- Veal stock"A little" means enough to film the bottom of the dish, not to cover the fish, perhaps half a cup for four eels. Veal stock is used because it is neutral and gelatinous; unsalted chicken stock is the nearest ready substitute, and a light fish stock also suits.
- Sweet herbs and maceA bundle of sweet herbs is a tied bunch of soft herbs, typically some combination of parsley stalks, thyme, bay, marjoram or savory, removed before serving. Pounded mace is the ground outer covering of the nutmeg, warmer and less sweet than nutmeg itself; a quarter teaspoon for four eels is plenty.
- TimingAn hour at 350F is not excessive here. Eel is fatty and full of connective tissue that needs time to soften, and unlike lean white fish it does not turn to cotton with long cooking. Test at 45 minutes; the flesh should come away from the backbone cleanly.
- Yield and servingFour large eels is a substantial dish, enough for six to eight or more. The cooking liquid sets to a jelly as it cools, and cold jellied eel was a familiar dish in its own right. Serve hot with the strained juices spooned over, and bread or plain potatoes.
Eel was cheap protein in Victorian Britain, and Cassell's price of sixpence to a shilling a pound puts it below most sea fish and well below butcher's meat. London in particular ran on eels: the Thames and the Dutch eel-boats moored at Billingsgate supplied a trade in stewed eels, jellied eels and eel pies sold from stalls and shops across the East End, several of which survived into living memory. The domestic version here is a step up from the street food, using veal stock, mace and butter rather than plain water, and baking it gently in a covered dish rather than boiling it in a copper. The recipe says only that stewed eels are best done in a moderate oven, and gives no reason. The abundance that made the dish ordinary has gone; eel populations across Europe collapsed in the later twentieth century, and a fish once sold by the barrow-load is now a restricted and expensive one.