Pawaru-Grahmata

№ 1III. nodaļa

Vārīts zutis

Boiled eel with sage, and a "blue" version

  • Serves 4
  • about 45 minutes
  • Melnraksts · vēl nav izmēģināts

1796Wahrihts suttis.

Modernizētslpp. 131 · PDF 145
4 porcijas

The book gives no quantities, only half an hour's boiling; the amounts below are ours.

Method

4 soļi
  1. Cut the skinned eel into pieces 5–6 cm long and rinse them well under cold running water.
  2. Put them in a pan with the water, salt and sage. Bring slowly to a simmer and skim off the foam.
  3. Simmer gently, with the lid ajar, for 25–30 minutes, until the flesh comes away from the backbone easily and has reached 63 °C next to the bone.
  4. Lift the pieces out with a slotted spoon and serve hot, with wine vinegar and lemon wedges at the table.

Notes

What the book says vs. what we added

the book puts the live eel in a bucket and covers it with salt, so it loses its slime, then skins, cleans, cuts and washes it and boils it for half an hour in river water with salt and a little sage. It is eaten with wine vinegar and lemons. For blue eel the skin stays on: the pieces boil briefly in unsalted vinegar that is already boiling, are taken out and salted, then finish cooking in boiling vinegar. Diluting the vinegar and the cooking temperature are ours.

"Pour the water away"

in the blue version the book says to pour off "the water", although only vinegar has been mentioned. We take it as the first, brief boil and finish the eel in fresh vinegar.

Killing in salt

covering live eels with salt strips the slime and kills them slowly. It is now regarded as cruel and is not allowed in some countries. Buy eel killed and cleaned by the fishmonger. To get the slime off a dead eel for the plain version, rub it with coarse salt and kitchen paper and rinse.

Eel

the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, and its trade is restricted. Farmed eel doesn't help much: eels don't breed in captivity, so farms grow on young glass eels caught in the wild. For the blue version use farmed rainbow trout, the classic fish for cooking blue (truite au bleu); simmer whole 300 g trout for 10–12 minutes in step 4. For the plain version thick pieces of mackerel work, simmered for 8–10 minutes.

Eel blood

raw eel blood contains a toxin that cooking destroys. If you clean eel yourself, wear gloves or wash your hands well and keep the blood away from cuts and eyes.

Vinegar

cooking in neat modern vinegar (5–6 % acid) makes the fish very sharp, so we dilute it by half. Use it neat if you want the book's full sourness.

Blue version

  • Leave the skin on and handle the fish as little as possible: the blue colour comes from the slime on the skin, so don't rub it with salt or scrub it. Cut the eel into 5–6 cm pieces.
  • Bring 300 ml of the diluted vinegar, unsalted, to the boil in a wide pan. Put the eel in and let it boil for 2 minutes, until the skin turns slate blue.
  • Lift the eel out and sprinkle it with the salt. Pour away the vinegar in the pan.
  • Bring the remaining 700 ml diluted vinegar to the boil, put the eel back in and simmer gently for 20–25 minutes, until cooked through (63 °C). Serve as above.

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