Home › Fish Recipes › Stewed Eels
Stewed Eels
1/2 pint (I cup) white stock 2 tablespoonfuls cream 2 ozs. (2 heaping tablespoonfuls) flour 2 ozs. (2 heaping tablespoonfuls) butter 1/2 teaspoonful whole white peppers Seasoning of salt, pepper, and red pepper Bunch of parsley 1/4 teaspoonful lemon juice I small onion Blade of mace Bunch of sweet herbs Skin and divide the eels into pieces about two inches long, put them into a casserole with the stock, sliced onion, herbs, mace, lemon juice, parsley, and whole peppers. Bring to the boil, skim, and allow to simmer for twenty minutes; lift out the eels and strain the stock.
Melt the butter in the casserole, stir in the flour, add the liquid from the fish, the cream, and boil for five minutes, stirring all the time, then add the seasonings and the eels, allow to heat thoroughly, and serve.
A white stew of eel, thickened with a roux made from the cooking liquor. The book gives every seasoning by weight but never says how much eel to buy, which is the first thing to settle.
- The missing quantityNo weight of eel is given. The stock, butter and flour would suit something in the region of 2 lb of eel as bought, perhaps 1 1/2 lb once skinned and trimmed, serving about four; this is an estimate, not the book's figure.
- "Casserole" here means a saucepanThe casserole is used as a lidded flameproof pot on the burner, not a baking dish. Everything in this recipe happens on the stovetop; the oven is never mentioned.
- Half a pint is one cupThe book brackets its own conversions, equating half a pint with a cup, though an imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz rather than 8. Either way, 2 oz each of butter and flour to that much liquid gives a very thick sauce -- closer to a binding paste. Thin it with more stock if you want a pouring consistency.
- Strain properlyWhole white peppercorns and a blade of mace are aromatics, not garnish. Straining the liquor after the first simmer is what keeps them out of the finished sauce; do not skip it and do not chop the herbs.
- Blade of maceThe dried outer covering of nutmeg, sold in flat blades. A pinch of ground mace substitutes, but add it to the sauce rather than the poaching liquid, since ground spice will not strain out.
- White stockAn unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Any light, unsalted chicken stock works; a browned or dark stock will muddy the colour, which is the whole point of a white stew.
- Do not overcook the returnThe eel has already had twenty minutes. "Heat thoroughly" means a few minutes in the finished sauce — long enough to warm through, no more, or the flesh shreds.
- Buying eelFishmongers will skin and cut eel to order, which saves a genuinely awkward job. European eel is critically endangered and trade in it is restricted; farmed Japanese or American eel is the practical source.
- Raw eel bloodFresh eel serum contains a protein toxin that is an irritant to eyes and open cuts. It is destroyed by heat, so the cooked dish is unaffected, but rinse hands and board well when handling the raw fish.
Eel was one of the cheapest and most reliable fish in Britain well into the twentieth century — river- and estuary-caught, sold live so it kept without ice, and eaten stewed, jellied or in pies by households that could afford little else. The white-sauce treatment here is the polite drawing-room version: mace, white peppercorns and cream instead of the vinegar and parsley liquor of the London eel-and-pie shops.