|
|
Estimated Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Estimated Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 4
Non-standard Cooking Utensils: Pan large enough for the fish
Ingredients:
750g (1˝lbs) eels
2 onions
2 large mushrooms
280ml (˝ pint) medium stock
280ml (˝ pint) port
30g (1oz) butter
30g (1oz) flour
1 bay leaf
Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste
Cooking Method
1. Melt the butter in a pan on a medium heat, stir in the flour and
mix.
2. Finely chop the onions, add to the pan and cook until lightly
browned (about 5 minutes) stirring occasionally.
3. Wash then cut the eels into pieces 8cm (3in) long and add to the
pan with all the remaining ingredients.
4. Simmer on a low heat for half an hour.
5. Create a border of croutons or toasted bread around a plate.
Arrange the eels in the middle and pour over the sauce. Eat while still
hot.
THE COMMON EEL
This fish is known frequently to quit its native element, and to set
off on a wandering expedition in the night, or just about the close of
clay, over the meadows, in search of snails and other prey. It also,
sometimes, betakes itself to isolated ponds, apparently for no other
pleasure than that which may be supposed to be found in a change of
habitation. This, of course, accounts for eels being found in waters
which were never suspected to contain them. This rambling disposition
in the eel has been long known to naturalists, and, from the following
lines, it seems to have been known to the ancients:—
“Thus the mail’d tortoise, and the wand’ring; eel,
Oft to the neighbouring beach will silent steal.”
THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF THE EEL
"Having occasion,” says Dr. Anderson, in the Bee, “to be once on a
visit to a friend’s house on Dee-side, in Aberdeenshire, I frequently
delighted to walk by the banks of the river. I, one day, observed
something like a black string moving along the edge of the water where
it was quite shallow. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that this
was a shoal of young eels, so closely joined together as to appear, on
a superficial view, on continued body, moving briskly up against the
stream. To avoid the retardment they experienced from the force of the
current, they kept close along the water’s edge the whole of the way,
following all the bendings and sinuosities of the river. Where they
were embayed, and in still water, the shoal dilated in breadth, so as
to be sometimes nearly a foot broad; but when they turned a cape, where
the current was strong, they were forced to occupy less space and press
close to the shore, struggling very hard till they passed it. This
shoal continued to move on, night and day without interruption for
several weeks. Their progress might be at the rate of about a mile an
hour. It was easy to catch the animals, though they were very active
and nimble. They were eels perfectly well formed in every respect, but
not exceeding two inches in length. I conceive that the shoal did not
contain, on an average, less than from twelve to twenty in breadth; so
that the number that passed, on the whole, must have been very great.
Whence they came or whither they went, I know not; but the place where
I saw this, was six miles from the sea.”
VORACITY OF THE EEL
We find in a note upon Isaac Walton, by Sir John Hawkins, that he knew
of eels, when kept in ponds, frequently destroying ducks. From a canal
near his house at Twickenham he himself missed many young ducks; and on
draining, in order to clean it, great numbers of large eels were caught
in the mud. When some of these were opened, there were found in their
stomachs the undigested heads of the quacking tribe which had become
their victims.
|
|
|