No. 1150

Eels, Broiled or Fried, Tartar Sauce

Anguilles Grillees ou Frites, Sauce Tartare

Cut slices of eel three inches long, and cook them in white wine mirepoix (No. 419), and fish stock (No. 195). When done, range the pieces in a tureen, and pour their stock over, strained through a sieve; let them cool off, then drain and dip each piece in melted butter, roll them in bread-crumbs, and broil over a slow fire; dress them on a hot dish, or else bread the eels by dipping in eggs and rolling in bread-crumbs, smooth this nicely, and fry in plenty of hot fat; drain, dress on a folded napkin, and decorate the top with fried parsley; serve separately a plain tartar sauce (No. 631).

← No. 1149 Eels a la Marechale Eels, Pike, Carp & Sturgeon No. 1151 Eels, Fried with Butter and Fine Herbs →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's method is a two-stage one: the eel is first braised in wine and fish stock, cooled in its own liquor, then either crumbed and broiled or egg-and-crumbed and deep fried. The cooling step is the hinge and is easy to skip.

Chill before breadingThe pieces must be thoroughly cold and well drained before they are buttered or egged. Warm eel is soft and greasy, the crumbs slide off, and the slices break apart under the tongs.
The cross-referencesNo. 419 is Ranhofer's mirepoix, No. 195 his fish stock, and No. 631 the plain tartar sauce he calls for; the exact compositions are set out at those numbers.
Braising timeRanhofer gives none. In a modern kitchen, three-inch collars of eel need something like 15 to 20 minutes at a bare simmer, depending on thickness. Eel is fatty and gelatinous and fairly forgiving, but a hard boil will split the skin and cloud the stock you are meant to strain and reuse.
"A slow fire"Moderate rather than fierce heat, with the pieces set well back from the element. The eel is already cooked; you are only setting and colouring the crumbs, which takes a few minutes a side.
Frying fat"Plenty of hot fat" means deep fat at 350 to 360F, enough to float the pieces. Fry in small batches so the temperature holds, and drain on a rack rather than directly on the napkin if you want the crust to stay crisp.
Fried parsleyDry, flat-leaf sprigs dropped into the same fat for 10 to 15 seconds, then lifted out. Wet parsley will spit violently; shake it out in a towel first.
Buying and prepping eelAsk the fishmonger to kill, skin and gut it. If you do it yourself, coarse salt or a paper towel handles the slime, and the skin peels most easily after a short scald. Eel blood contains a protein that irritates on contact with cuts or eyes; cooking destroys it entirely, but rinse the cavity and wash your hands and board.
YieldA whole eel of about two pounds gives six to eight three-inch pieces, enough for three or four as a course. Serve the tartar sauce cold and separately, as written.
The leftover stockRanhofer has you strain the cooking liquor over the eel only to drain it away. It sets to a firm jelly overnight and is worth keeping for a fish aspic or to enrich a sauce.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full account of the French repertoire as it was cooked in an American luxury restaurant, numbering every preparation so that one dish could cite another. Eel was still a common market fish on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1890s, cheap, abundant in the Hudson and the Chesapeake, and long a staple of Lenten and fast-day cooking in Catholic Europe. Frying eel en tartare, breaded and served with a cold caper-and-gherkin mayonnaise, is a standard Parisian bistro treatment, and the acidity of the sauce answers the oiliness of the flesh. The dish sits in a run of eel entries here because Ranhofer organised his fish chapter by species rather than by method, and the twelve or so eel preparations he gives are a fair measure of how ordinary the fish once was on American tables; wild eel populations have since declined sharply, and it now reaches most cooks only as farmed, smoked or Japanese unagi.