Baked Eels
Skin and parboil as for frying. Cut in convenient lengths, put them in a baking-pan, dredge with flour, salt, and pepper, and add half a cup of water. Bake twenty minutes, take them out on a hot platter, and make a gravy by stirring into the pan a tablespoonful of flour, rubbing it smooth in the liquor in the pan. When smooth, but not browned, add a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire, a little boiling water; stir until smooth and bubbling, and pour around the eels.
A short, plainly written baked fish dish that assumes you have already read the book's entry for fried eels, since it borrows the skinning and parboiling from it. Two things it never says outright: the oven temperature and how much water the gravy needs.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given; the cook was expected to judge the heat by hand and experience. Around 400F is a reasonable modern equivalent, and twenty minutes suits smallish pieces; the flesh should be opaque and pulling from the backbone.
- Parboil first, and mean itParboil first -- Eel blood contains a protein toxin, but it is destroyed by thorough cooking rather than by the parboil specifically; the brief boil mainly firms the very soft flesh so it holds its shape in the pan. Five to eight minutes in salted water is enough.
- SkinningEel skin is tough and slippery. Most fishmongers will skin and gut one on request, which is worth asking for; if you do it yourself, work with a cloth for grip and wash any cuts on your hands rather than letting raw eel blood sit in them.
- SourcingEuropean eel is now listed under CITES and heavily restricted; American eel stocks are also monitored. Buy from a fishmonger who can tell you the species and source, or substitute another firm, oily fish such as mackerel or monkfish, adjusting the bake time.
- "Dredge"Here it means sprinkling flour, salt and pepper over the pieces in the pan, not coating them in a dish of seasoned flour. The flour's job is to thicken the half cup of water into the base of the gravy.
- The gravyHalf a cup of water plus twenty minutes in a hot oven leaves very little liquid. Rub the tablespoon of flour into what remains off the heat so it goes smooth, then add the butter and Worcestershire, then boiling water a little at a time until it is the consistency you want -- roughly a cup in total.
- WorcestershireA standard bottled sauce in American kitchens by the time this book was compiled, used much as we use it now for a savoury, slightly sharp note. A teaspoon in a cup of gravy is restrained; taste before adding salt, since the sauce brings its own.
- YieldA whole eel of 1 1/2 to 2 lb, skinned and cut up, serves three or four with potatoes.