The British eels
In Britain, we think it's horrible and slimy; elsewhere, it's considered a delicacy. Why are we so reluctant to enjoy eel? Sudi Pigott finds out.
Eel has an image problem in the UK, as Michel Roux of Le Gavroche is well aware. "British diners seem to have a psychological barrier to trying it," he says. "It's woefully underrated."
Richard Cook of Severn & Wye Smokery in Gloucestershire calculates that, in the UK, we consume less than 350 tonnes of eel annually - a drop in the ocean compared with consumption in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, where eels are highly esteemed and treated as a delicacy.
Eels, fresh and smoked, are available all year round, although the prime season for wild eel is during autumn and early winter, when mature eels which have been feeding heavily in freshwater rivers begin their migratory journey back to the North Atlantic's Sargasso Sea for spawning. At this stage, the greenish-brown eels take on a silvery tinge and are at peak condition. They are at their plumpest and juiciest, with rich, meaty, succulent flesh, a slightly gelatinous texture and a good covering of fat. Only eels with this very high fat content are suitable for smoking.
The life cycle of the eel is extraordinary. When they arrive in the UK after three years of being carried by the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic, they are transparent elvers, or glass eels. They seek out freshwater rivers, such as the Severn and the Wye in Somerset, where they then spend between six and 10 years before returning to the sea as silver eels. As Michael Brown of Brown & Forrest Smokery in Somerset explains, rain triggers the eels' migration and they only run nocturnally.
Once they are caught, Brown blast-freezes the eels to remove the slime. They store well frozen and, when thawed, the slime simply slides off. The eels are then gutted, brined and hot-smoked at 90-100°C in a simple wood-fired oven, using beech or apple. Other larger-scale smokers, such as Severn & Wye, smoke over oak. According to Brown, when smoked for a couple of hours until the belly flaps open up slightly, the eels are cooked and should be a coppery brown colour with firm yet succulent flesh. At Brown's own restaurant adjacent to the smokery, his wife, Utta, serves smoked eel with home-made beetroot relish and fresh local horseradish cream with land cress.
When it comes to buying smoked eel, Henry Harris of London's Hush restaurant advises avoiding the relatively less expensive Dutch variety. "It has a cleaner taste, but the earthiness of our eel eats far better," he says. Most smoked eel is supplied to restaurants on the bone rather than filleted but, as the eel is always cooked whole, there should be no perceptible taste difference with fillets.
Fresh eel should always be bought in live, otherwise it is difficult to ascertain its freshness, advises Steve Downey of Bristol supplier Chef Direct. Traditionally, they are killed by banging them hard on the head and smothering them with a cloth, although Germain Schwab of Winteringham Fields restaurant in Lincolnshire prefers to immerse them in heavily salted water. To skin them, Jamie Younger, senior sous chef at Bibendum in Chelsea, London, advises hanging the whole eel on a meat hook and peeling the tough skin down from top to bottom.
Who does what with eel?
Michel Roux of Le Gavroche, London, likes the meatiness and richness of eel, which can stand up to a lot of flavour. He prepares fresh eel traditionally as anguille au vert - stewed with fresh herbs and served with the cooking liquor and lots of sorrel - or in other classic French recipes such as a matelote bourguignonne with red wine and lardons. Smoked eel is served with blini, salmon eggs and horseradish cream.
Matthew Harris of Bibendum, London, enjoys the intense, robust flavour of eel. He serves fresh eel in classic bourride made with Beaujolais and served with a‹oli and a good slick of olive oil. Smoked eel is warmed slightly on the bottom of a salamander grill for about three minutes to bring out the flavour. Harris explains that warming the fish slightly softens the texture and lessens the oily impact. It is then served through a potato salad with quails' eggs, horseradish and dill.
At the end of the summer the restaurant also serves sand eel - a saltwater eel mostly from the north coast of Scotland and available only in limited quanities. The sand eel is of similar size to a fresh anchovy and has an intense flavour. Harris serves them as a fritter with an a‹oli or Thai dipping sauce.
Steve Carter of the Atlantic Bar & Grill, London, is challenged by the smoky earthiness of eel and has incorporated it in a salad with globe artichokes, fris‚e and savory (the pungency of which undercuts the fattiness of eel), dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette. The artichokes are cooked in a blanc marinade with finely sliced carrot and onion, while the smoked eel is cut into sections and dressed with black pepper and lemon oil.
Anthony Boyd at the Glasshouse, London, combines eel with a ballotine of rabbit, courgette flower and cream cheese. Boned-out rabbit legs are rolled up with crushed coriander, cumin and black pepper, then rolled in clingfilm, cooked for 20 minutes in a bain-marie and left overnight. Smoked eel is chopped up and combined with cream cheese, which is stuffed into the heads of courgette flowers and steamed for 6-7 minutes. For a creamed fennel base, very thin slices of fennel are cooked off lightly before adding a little cream and cooking out until thick.
The dish is served drizzled with olive oil.
Sally Clarke of Clarke's, London, buys eel freshly smoked from a small Norfolk supplier. She likes to partner it with piquant or citrus flavours to undercut its richness but play up its robust qualities. She lightly grills smoked eel on the bottom of a salamander alongside pancetta and treviso. The wilted bitter leaves are piled on to toscana or ciabatta crostini, with the pancetta and smoked eel drizzled with olive oil and finished with a big scoop of soured cream.
Richard Corrigan at Lindsay House, London, likes the fact that eel cooks to a tender but still meaty texture and stands up well to full flavours. He makes his own variation on eel daube by marinating eel in Cabernet Sauvignon, red wine vinegar, leeks, carrots and black pepper for 48 hours, before braising in veal jus and serving with a swede pur‚e. Smoked eel is served in a punchy salad with bitter dandelion and spicy chorizo, and finished with olive tapenade.
Richard Guest at the Castle, Taunton, Somerset, offers scrambled duck egg with smoked eel, caviar and spiced oil in a combination of richness, spice and saltiness.
Stephane Delourme and Rick Stein at the Seafood Restaurant, Padstow, Cornwall, find that the sweet, tender, flavourful qualities of eel are well partnered with sweet-sour combinations, as in fresh eel with classic Chinese black bean sauce, with plenty of ginger to undercut the richness.
Henry Harris of Hush, London, relishes the rich, meaty, slightly sweet, velvety texture of eels and laments their high price and limited favour among UK diners. He serves smoked eel with pink fir potatoes boiled in their skin, horseradish, chopped shallot and just-cooked Black Forest bacon. He favours fresh eel, either slow-cooked in a casserole, coq au vin-style, with red wine and a good strong chicken stock to bring out their meatiness; or, in homage to the Chinese appreciation of eels, as deep-fried chunks of fresh eel twice-dipped in milk, rice flour, five-spice powder and cayenne.
In spring, Harris tries to get hold of elvers, which have no bone or cartilage and have a yielding texture, rather like a fishy spaghetti. He simply fries them in olive oil with garlic, chilli and sherry. Rarer still are rather gelatinous lamprey, which Harris occasionally imports from France still swimming in a box of river water, and which he marinates and cooks in red wine.
Eels in Japanese cooking
Eels have been eaten in Japan since antiquity, and most of the eels there are now farmed. By far the most popular way of eating eels in Japan is kabayaki, in which the eel is filleted, then steamed and grilled with tare, a sweet soy sauce.
At Nobu restaurant in London, freshwater eels are flown in from Japan. As well as serving eel kabayaki-style over rice, chef Nobu Matsuhisa combines freshwater eel with pan-fried foie gras.
The eel is baked with sake for five minutes each side, steamed for 20 minutes to tenderise, then served on disks of daikon with the foie gras, shiitake mushroom, fried shiso leaf, eel bone crackers and a sweet soy and mirin sauce.
The recipe appears in Nobu the Cookbook (Quadrille, £25), which also contains the following instructions for filleting eel:
Stick an ice pick through the head of the eel to fix it to the chopping board; make a cut from the base of the neck towards the tail, keeping the edge of the knife on the backbone; open the eel and remove the backbone by cutting underneath it towards the tail; discard the internal organs; cut off the tails and fins.
Suppliers
Brown & Forrest Smokery
01458 250875
Supplies the Criterion MPW, Monsieur Max
Severn & Wye Smokery
01452 760190
Supplies Bibendum, Harvey Nichols Fifth Floor, Fish, Corse Lawn House hotel
Chef Direct (formerly Heritage Foods)
01275 474707
Supplies Kensington Place, Le Gavroche, Alastair Little, the Glasshouse
Beale's Eels 01953 452769
Supplies Lindsay House, St John, Ransome's Dock, Blueprint, many gentlemen's clubs
