Eel Dinner

So we couldn't just leave the area where we'd been helping with eels on the drop of hat, we first had to cook an eel extravaganza for our hosts. We had Mitch and local handyman/lobster fisherman/eel plant dude Terry come over to Mitch's house for dinner, where we made up a couple classic recipes. First was Mitch with eel Kabiaki, Japanese barbequed eel, drenched in soy and sugar glaze. Skin so crispy and tasty you wanted to cry.

Second came some smoked eel with some classic fixings.


Third was Fabian's eel, apple and onion tart. This was the biggest stray from the classics that we tried on the night. Worked out well. At this point we also broke into the Tantalus Riesling that we grabbed in the Okanagan valley. Worked some synergy with the meal at hand.

Fourth was 'eel en vert'(eels in green) a recipe for eel I pulled from an ancient Gourmet cookbook. It was a wild recipe. Called for shitloads of herbs, so I used everything green I could lay my hands on. It was outrageously delicious, but so bad for you it should almost come with a health warning. Just as a glimpse into it's contents: To thicken you use four egg yolks and a half cup of cream. It's called a liason, and nobody does that shit anymore. Besides the French, of course.

All in all the meal was phenomenal, we highly enjoyed everything that was laid out. Eel is a really versatile fish, it's fatty enough to fry, but still has a distinct flavour of it's own. I was impressed. I'm surprised that it's so little known.

For the record, if someone ever offers you the oppourtunity to kill eel in the classic way, you should probably not do it unless you like a good struggle with a slimy snakelike fish. I enjoyed it because it's an experience, but damn was it a strange event.