Remember my earlier eel adventures? Don’t panic, I’m not putting the twitching video back up.
When my friend and Italian chef Carla Tomasi heard I was frying fresh eel, she sent me her recipe for anguilla in carpione – a pickled eel dish traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve. It’s delicious and very easy to make, once you get past the squeamishness of handling pulsing slabs of flesh.
Cut the eel fillets into pieces, then dust them in seasoned flour. Keep them as cold as possible and work quickly to avoid the twitching! Fry the pieces gently in a combination of butter and oil until cooked through…
In the meantime, bring to boil ¾ cup oil and ¼ cup red wine vinegar, with a bashed clove of garlic, a pinch of fennel seeds, half a sliced onion, two bay leaves and a piece of chilli (dried or fresh). Drain the eel pieces and place them in a bowl, then pour the mixture over…
It will keep well in the fridge for at least a week – make sure the eel is submerged in the liquid, topping up with more oil/vinegar if needed…
The skin becomes quite rubbery when cold, so I trim it off before eating (it’s fine when first cooked). The tender pickled eel is tangy and delicious, and particularly good on buttered sourdough toast…
Thank you, lovely Carla, for sharing such an interesting dish with me! ♥
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
sounds good, however, I will leave the tasting and experience of preparations to you…. =^-^=
Estonian-born, of course I love, love, love eel and have absolutely no problems handling it. Pickled and jellied gives me a huge thrill!! Yours is a little different but very easy and as soon as I can get hold of some of these gorgeous beasties off I shall go :) !! Remember the years I lived in the Northern Rivers of NSW – we had a river rich in mudcrab at the bottom of the hill, but more oft eels slipped into the traps: my very foodie Hungarian husband was not so good with them, but I would just grab hold of the living critters behind their neck and walk up to the house to have yet another pot cooking: oh, he liked the results :) !!
This recipe looks delicious. I’ve only eaten eel two or three times when we visited New Zealand many years ago.
Eha, I had to smile at your eel “experience”. I can just picture you walking to the house with a live eel dangling from your hand.
*smile* Oh, that happened many times thru’ the years!! I would not bother unless there were two or three !!! Jellied some, ‘stewed’ some: friends did not know what they were eating!!! Fish! Yummy! They don’t bite or sting, just wrap themselves around your arm – but I did not enjoy oft throwing them into boiling water . . . bit of a ‘murderess’ :) !
It does sound delicious and as if it would also work with octopus. I did half expect you to say fry gently … until they stop twitching!!!
Ooh…think I’d enjoy this!
I will take your word on the deliciousness of this if you don’t mind Celia! 😉
Honestly, eel is quite delicious. Can’t say I’ve ever personally prepared it myself, maybe it’s time to change that!