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Pickled Eel
I ONION, SLICED 2 BAY LEAVES 3 WHOLE ALLSPICE I SLICE LEMON Cut skinned and cleaned eels into 6-inch lengths, cover with salt, and let stand 3 hours; then rinse thoroughly.
Put remaining ingredients into a saucepan, let boil 15 minutes, and put in half the quantity of eels. Cover pan and let simmer until tender, remove, and cook remaining half.
Put eels in jar, cool cooking liquor and strain over. Nothing comes handier in a permanent camp and when they're hungry it's a cinch to catch a big mess of themboth eels and eaters. Here are 5 French tricks to play on 2-3 pounds of eel: 1. Lay short lengths of skinned eel in a saucepan, strewing among them bits of bay leaf, parsley, 2-3 cloves, 2-3 bits of mace, and 1 soaked prune for each serving. Barely cover with red wine, preferably claret, and simmer until eels are done. Strain cooking liquor after eels are taken up, and thicken with flour for the sauce. 2. Cut skinned eel in serving portions, lay in a bowl, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons vinegar, 2-3 onion slices, 6 whole peppers, 1 small bay leaf broken to bits, 2 parsley sprigs and 1 sprig celery. Stir until well mixed and marinate 3-4 hours, inverting contents of bowl several times to season all evenly. Drain, season, lay in baking dish and bake in medium oven, using strained marinating liquid for basting sauce. When done serve with mayonnaise well seasoned with mustard, chopped tarragon and crushed garlic. 3. Simmer 2 cups cut-up beets with 3 tablespoons butter and 2 cups light beer. Lay 2-inch lengths of skinned and seasoned eels on top, cover closely and simmer, basting eels occasionally with beet liquid. The eels will need to cook in this manner at least 45 minutes. 4. Lay seasoned pieces of skinned eels on a bed of chopped sorrel. Simmer in its own juices until done. 5. Leave small skinned eels whole. Soak in weakened vinegar 1/2 hour. Drain and dry. Season. Take stitches in each eel with a skewer, doubling it back and forth on itself until entire length is impaled. Brush with butter and grill.
The five French variations are straightforward cooked dishes and read clearly enough. The pickle itself does not, and it is the part that should be left alone.
- Why the pickle failsThe ingredient list as printed here is incomplete, but what survives specifies no salt weight, no processing of the filled jar, and no acid proportion, and the fish is simply covered with cooled cooking liquor and held in a jar. A soused fish kept in an unmeasured, cooled liquor is the sort of low-acid, low-oxygen environment in which Clostridium botulinum can grow, and the book recommends it for a permanent camp. Use a current tested recipe for pickled fish if you want one.
- Eel bloodFresh eel serum contains a protein toxin that irritates skin and eyes and is dangerous if it reaches a cut or the mouth. Thorough cooking destroys it completely, which is why eel is never served raw. Rinse hands and boards well after handling a freshly killed fish.
- "Medium oven"In variation 2, read this as a moderate oven, roughly 350-375°F. Serving-size pieces basted with the marinade should be done fairly quickly; eel is fatty and forgiving but goes stringy if overcooked.
- The beet and beer braise"Light beer" here means a pale lager, not a reduced-calorie beer. The forty-five minutes is not padding — eel collagen needs sustained gentle heat to turn silky, and the beets need about that long as well.
- SorrelVariation 4 depends on sorrel throwing off a great deal of acidic liquid as it collapses, since no other liquid is added. Allow a generous bed — a large bunch — and keep the heat low so it does not scorch before it releases.
- Whole peppers and whole allspiceBoth mean the whole dried berries, not ground. Mace is the lacy outer covering of nutmeg, sold as blades; if substituting ground, use a small pinch per blade, as blades vary considerably in size.
- Skewering for the grillThe concertina threading in variation 5 keeps a small eel from curling and lets it cook evenly over coals. Metal skewers, and brush with butter more than once — the skin tightens and can tear if it dries.
- YieldTwo to three pounds of dressed eel, the amount the French variations are written for, serves four generously as a main course.