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Eels Roasted in the Ashes (See under Cooking in the Ashes)
See under Cooking in the Ashes TO COLLAR EELS A Century-old Receipt Skin and gut as many eels as you may require; then take out their backbones and cut off their heads; next season them well with cayenne, common pepper, salt, a little grated nutmeg, a few bruised cloves, some sage chopped fine, and a little grated lemon peel. Roll up the fish in fillets, and bind them round tightly with tape. Boil them in salt-and-water and vinegar in equal proportions, until they are done. Then take out the fish and throw in some whole peppercorns (black peppers); cast the pickle into a deep dish, and when it becomes quite cold place the fish in it.
Congers, lampreys, garfish, gunards, and mackerel may be prepared in the same way; but none of these must be deprived of their skins.
A classic English collar: boned eel rolled, bound, boiled in a vinegar brine, then left to set in its own cold pickle. The recipe gives no quantities and no times, so the notes below fill in what a modern cook needs.
- "Tape" means cotton tapeNarrow undyed cotton tape or butcher's twine, not adhesive tape of any kind. Tie it tight enough to compress the roll and snip it off after the fish has cooled in the pickle.
- "Until they are done"A collar 2 inches thick takes roughly 25-35 minutes at a bare simmer. It is done when a skewer meets no resistance at the centre and the flesh has set firm rather than jellied.
- Cook it throughEel blood contains a protein that is irritant when raw and is destroyed by heat, so eel is never served rare. Full cooking is not optional here, and the long simmer the recipe assumes handles it.
- The pickle is very sharp"The pickle is very sharp" -- Equal parts vinegar and salted water gives an aggressive brine by modern taste. Half vinegar to two parts water, salted at about a tablespoon per litre, still sets the collar and leaves the spicing legible, though the weaker acid will keep less well.
- "Common pepper" and cayenneCommon pepper is ordinary ground black pepper, used alongside the cayenne rather than instead of it. Bruised cloves means cracked whole cloves; three or four per eel is plenty, as they dominate quickly.
- StorageThis is a short-keeping larder dish, not a shelf-stable preserve. Keep the collars submerged in the cold pickle in the refrigerator and eat within four or five days; do not seal them in jars for the cupboard.
- Sourcing and substitutesEuropean eel is now under trade restriction and severely depleted; consider using the recipe's own alternatives instead. Mackerel and gurnard collar well and cook faster, around 15 minutes, and as the text says they keep their skins on.
- ServingOne medium eel makes two or three collars, enough for four as a cold first course. Slice across the roll into rounds and serve with brown bread, the pickle spooned over.
To "collar" a fish or a piece of meat is to bone it, season it, roll it into a cylinder and bind it so it slices into neat rounds when cold; the name is traditionally explained by the collar of tape or cloth used to hold the roll together, though that account is customary rather than established etymology. The same technique gave English kitchens collared brawn, collared beef and collared salmon. Collared eel was common in London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the Thames and the tidal Essex creeks supplied eels in quantity and Dutch eel boats moored at Billingsgate; the vinegar pickle kept the cooked fish edible for a few days without ice. The list of alternatives at the end — congers, lampreys, garfish, gurnard, mackerel — suggests fish then readily available at market, many of which modern retail has abandoned or that stocks no longer support.