Eel, Collared
INGREDIENTS. - 1 large eel; pepper and salt to taste; 2 blades of mace, 2 cloves, a little allspice very finely pounded, 6 leaves of sage, and a small bunch of herbs minced very small. AVERAGE CosT, 10d. per lb.
Bone the eel and skin it; split it, and sprinkle it over with the ingredients, taking care that the spices are very finely pounded, and the herbs chopped very small. Roll it up and bind with a broad COLLARED EEL. piece of tape, and boil it in water, mixed with a little salt and vinegar, till tender.
It may either be served whole or cut in slices; and when cold, the eel should be kept in the liquor it was boiled in, but with a little more vinegar put to it.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE from August to March.
A classic English collar: a boned eel rolled around its own seasoning, simmered in acidulated water and kept in the resulting liquor. The text as printed here opens with a stray line of ingredients ("pint of medium stock, butter and flour") that belongs to a neighbouring recipe and has nothing to do with this one.
- Sourcing the eelEuropean eel is now critically endangered and listed under CITES, and Japanese and American eels are in steep decline; supply is regulated and prices are nothing like the 10d. per lb quoted. Buy only from a fishmonger who can tell you the source, or choose another oily fish.
- Boning and skinningAsk the fishmonger to bone and skin it, which is the whole difficulty of the dish. Eel skin is tough and slippery and the backbone runs the full length; a fresh eel is also strong enough to need dispatching, which is not a home job.
- Raw eel bloodEel serum contains a protein toxin that irritates skin and eyes and is dangerous if swallowed raw. Thorough cooking destroys it completely, so the finished collar is perfectly safe, but wash hands, board and knife well and keep raw juices away from your face.
- TapeBroad cotton tape was used because it holds a fat roll without cutting into the flesh. Butcher's string wound at 1 in. intervals does the same job; muslin wrapped round the roll and tied at both ends is another workable substitute, though the recipe itself specifies tape.
- The spicesTwo blades of mace are the lacy outer covering of nutmeg; blades vary in size, so two might come to somewhere between a quarter and a half teaspoon once ground. Grind the mace, cloves and allspice together to a genuine powder, as the recipe insists twice: whole fragments in a rolled collar make for unpleasant mouthfuls when it is sliced cold.
- Two hours is too longTwo hours is longer than most cooks would need -- the recipe's own test is simply 'till tender'. A collar from a 2-3 lb eel should be done in 45 to 60 minutes at a bare simmer, tested by pushing a skewer through the roll. A rolling boil risks breaking the collar apart and squeezing the flesh dry.
- The cooking liquorSalt and vinegar in the water both season and acidify; a rough working ratio is 2 tablespoons vinegar and 1 teaspoon salt per pint of water. The extra vinegar added afterwards acts as a preservative, which is much of the purpose of collaring.
- Keeping itNineteenth-century larders were cold; yours is not. Cool the collar in its liquor and refrigerate, where the gelatinous stock will set to a jelly around it. Eat within three or four days, sliced thin, with brown bread and more vinegar.
- YieldA collar from a large eel would serve six to eight as a cold first course. The recipe allows it to be served whole or in slices, and directs that when cold it be kept in its boiling liquor with a little more vinegar.
To "collar" a food is to bone it, roll it, bind it and cook it so that it slices in neat rounds when cold; the culinary term is usually taken from the collar or band that holds the roll together, though that derivation is traditional rather than settled. The technique is much older than Beeton: collared pig's head (brawn), collared beef and collared eel appear in English household books from the seventeenth century onward as a way of turning an awkward cut into something that would keep in vinegar in a cool larder, and be brought out cold for breakfast or supper. Eel suited it perfectly, being long, fatty and full of gelatine, so the boiling liquor sets to a jelly around the slices. London had a large eel trade well into Beeton's day, supplied from the Thames, the Fens and Dutch eel boats moored at Billingsgate. The August-to-March season she gives overlaps the autumn run of mature silver eels heading downriver to the sea, though it is a good deal wider than that run. The same fish underlies the jellied eels still sold in East London pie shops.