Conger Eel à la Maitre d'Hôtel Sauce

Ingredients

• a piece of conger eel weighing about two pounds
• two sliced onions
• a handful of parsley
• two bay-leaves
• one clove of garlic
• season with salt and pepper
• a glass of vinegar

Method

1. 1

   Cleanse the conger eel, tie it with string, and blanch in boiling salt water for ten minutes.

2. 2

   Drain and place in a stewpan, cover with water, add onions, parsley, bay leaves, garlic, salt, and pepper.

3. 3

   Simmer for half an hour, then drain and serve with Maitre d'Hôtel sauce.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 3 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical household cookery (1891) by E. Duret, page 91. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

a piece of conger eel weighing about two pounds ; cleanse it most carefully; wash and tie it round with string, and blanch in boiling salt water for ten minutes ; drain, and put it in a stewpan ; cover it with water, add two sliced onions, a handful of parsley, two bay-leaves, n 214 PRACTICAL HOUSEHOLD COOKERY. glass of vinegar, one clove of garlic, and season with salt and pepper ; let it simmer for half an hour ; after which, drain and dress on a dish, and serve with Maitre d'Hotel sauce (No 159) apart 465. CONGER EEL, ROASTED. Cleanse, skin, and wash a piece of conger eel weighing about three pounds ;. pla(;e this in a dish, with salt, pepper, nutmeg, a gill of salad-oil, the juice of a lemon, a bay-leaf, two spiigs of thyme, a sliced onion, and small carrot, to steep for about two hours. After this, put the fish in a buttered baking-pan ; cover with a buttered or oiled paper and bake it in a hot oven for half an hour or till well coloured ; then put it on a very hot dish, remove the grease or fat from the pan in which it was baked ; put in the pan a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a gill of Spanish sauce (No 151), and the juice of a lemon ; stir this well on the fire, and after boiling for a few minutes pour over the fish and serve. Bemarks OS Fresh-water EsLa There are three or four distinct species of fresh-water eels found in this country. The most common of these are the sharp-nosed and the broad-nosed eels, inhabiting and abounding in all fresh-waters throughout Europe, and in short in almost every part of the world except the Arctic regions. The eel will live a long time out of water, and migrate from place to place by crawling overland ; but the strangest part of all iu the construction of this fish is, that it possesses a heart located in its tail. Eels vary in size, some weighing over ten pounds, but usLiallv from one to three. PRACTICAL HOUSEHOLD COOKERY. 215 466. STEWED EELS, ENGLISH STYLE. Eels are generally alive when brought into the kitchen ; it is therefore necessary, on account of their tenacity of life, to know an easy way of killing them ; this is done by merely inserting the point of a sharp instrument into the spine at the back of the head to the depth of an inch, when the eel will become perfectly motionless. Then scour the fish well with freezing salt, in order to remove the slimy mucus attached to the skin ; after which, with a cloth in your left hand take a firm hold of the eel's head, and with the right hand proceed to detach the skin just below the gills with the point of a small kuife. When this is done take hold of the loosened skin with your right hand and force it to slide off the fish ; cut off the head, lay the fish flat on the table, and with the same pointed knife open it from one extremity to the other by pressing the point of the blade against the backbone on both sides ; remove the gut, dec, trim away the fins, clean and wipe thoroughly both halves of the fish after having taken the bone out, then cut the eel into pieces of about three inches long, place them in a stewpan^ with a sliced carrot and onion, a few sprigs of parsley and thyme, a few pepper-corns, four cloves, a blade of mace, and a little salt. Moisten the lot with half a bottle of port wine, cover with a buttered paper and replace the lid on the stewpan ; set this on the stove-fire to stew gently for about twenty minutes ; after which drain, and trim the pieces, keeping their liquor to make the sauce, by melting two ounces of butter into a small stewpan. When this is done add two tablespoonfuls of flour and stir it over the fire with a wooden spoon until it becomes slightly coloured, then moisten gradually with the liquor in which the eels were stewed ; add to it a gill or two of good stock and two 2i6 PRACTICAL HOUSEHOLD COOKERY. glasses of port wine ; stir this sauce over the fire till it boils, when it must be drawn to the comer of the stove, in oinler to let it throw up gently the scum, which must be skimmed off; then, if necessary, reduce the sauce to its proper consistency, pass it through a tammy into the stew- pan containing the pieces of eel, add a few prepared mushroom buttons, a pat of fresh butter, a little blanched and chopped parsley, the juice of a lemon, and a tea- spoonful of essence of anchovy ; toss the whole well together over the fire till well mixed and boiling, then dish the eel up, pour the remainder of the sauce over it, garnish round with croiitons fiied in butter, and serve. 467. EEL XATELOTTE. Prepare a nice-sized eel as in No. 466, cut it into pieces of three inches long, and place them in a saut^-pan with two ounces of butter, the half of an onion chopped fine, and half a tablespoon ful of chopped parsley. Season with salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, one clove of garlic, and two bay-leaves; set these on the fire to brown a little; after which, sprinkle a tablespoonful of flour; fry for two minutes longer, stirring the while with a wooden spoon ; then moisten with half a bottle of red wine (claret. Burgundy, or Italian) and half a pint of stock; let it simmer for twenty-five minutes, and put the pieces of eel on a dish in a circular order, so that each piece rests on tlie other, viz., a slice of croiiton and a piece of eel, and so on. Then pass the sauce thiough a tammy into a stewpan, add a little anchovy butter, together with the juice of a lemon ; stir this on the fire till it boils, fill up the centre of the dish with two dozen button onions (No. 287), pre- viously stewed and glazed for that purpose, pour the sauce over the lot, and serre. PRACTICAL HOUSEHOLD COOKERY. 217 468. EEL MILANAISE. Skin, bone, and cleanse two eels as previously described ; cut tbem in pieces about two incbes long and brown tbem nicely in butter, properly seasoned witb salt and pepper, for eight minutes ; after which, take tlieni out, squeeze the juice of two lemons over them, sprinkle each with some fine herbs and mace, egg and bread-crumb them, and fry them in clarified butter. When properly done dish up the pieces on a napkin and serve very hot, with a sharp sauce to taste, apai^t. 469. nLLET OF EEL, FRIED. TARTARE SAUCE. Fillet two eels of about one and a half poiuid each in the usual way. Steep these in boiling water for four minutes, then rub the outside of the fillets well with a cloth, in oixler to remove the second oily skin ; cut them in pieces thi'ee inches long, put them in a stewpan with enough water to cover th6 lot, add a glass of vinegar

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.