Eels, Boiled
INGREDIENTS for dish sufficient for 4 or 5 persons.-4 small eels, sufficient water to cover them; a large bunch of parsley. AVERAGE COST, 10d. per lb.
Choose small eels for boiling; put them into a stewpan with the parsley, and just sufficient water to cover them; simmer till tender. Take them out, pour a little parsley and butter over them, and serve some in a tureen.
TIME. hour.
SEASONABLE from June to March.
A plain nineteenth-century treatment of a fish that repays gentle cooking. The text is garbled at the head — the stray line about "a pint of medium stock, butter and flour" belongs to the parsley sauce that finishes the dish.
- The hinge: gentle heatEel flesh is firm and gelatinous, and a hard boil makes it stringy and splits the skin. Bring the water barely to a tremble and hold it there; "simmer till tender" means a bare shiver at the surface, not a rolling boil.
- TimingThe original "TIME. hour" appears to have lost a fraction in printing. Small eels are done in roughly 15-20 minutes, when the flesh pulls cleanly from the backbone. A whole large eel takes longer, but Mrs Beeton is explicit that you should choose small ones.
- Parsley and butterThis is the period name for a plain butter sauce: butter and flour worked together, thinned with liquid (Beeton's own version uses melted butter rather than stock), with a generous handful of chopped parsley added at the end so it stays green. The fragment at the top of the entry may belong to this sauce, or may have strayed in from the neighbouring recipe.
- "Medium stock"In Beeton's system this is a light meat or bone stock, weaker than her "strong" stock. A mild chicken or fish stock, or the strained eel liquor itself, does the job.
- Buying and preparationEels are sold skinned and cut by fishmongers now; ask for this. Eel blood contains a protein irritant that is destroyed by cooking, so do not sample the raw fish or the unheated liquor, and wash cuts on your hands if you handle it.
- SourcingEuropean eel is critically endangered and subject to trade restrictions, so the "SEASONABLE from June to March" note no longer applies in any practical sense. Farmed Japanese or American eel, or smoked eel, are the usual alternatives offered, though both of those species are themselves listed as endangered.
- YieldAs stated, four small eels serve four or five as a course. Boiled or mashed potatoes and the sauce are the traditional accompaniment.
Eel was cheap urban food in Victorian Britain. Eel and pie shops, where stewed eels in parsley liquor — the same butter-and-parsley idea as here, thickened and served green — became a staple of working-class East End eating and survives in a handful of shops still. Beeton's instruction to choose small eels reflects the trade: eels were sold live from tanks and barrels, kept alive because eel spoils quickly and because freshness could be judged by movement. Her season of June to March is given without explanation in the text. The fish sold was the European eel, whose life cycle was then still a mystery; it is now listed as critically endangered, which is why a dish that was once among the cheapest on the slab is a rarity today.