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Community Corner

Notes from a Food Diva: Eel for a Meal

Carol Brock provides three eel recipes after witnessing a scene at Little Neck Bay.

Last week during a fitness mile walk along Little Neck Bay, I stopped short at a sandy cove next to Fort Totten to view some most unusual goings on.

A sturdy outboard motorboat was anchored offshore and five men, with waist high rubber waders, were in the bay slowly walking towards me holding a stretched out 30-foot long net.

It was a fishing scene from the Caribbean transported to northeast Queens.

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The men - and one woman - walked the net to shallow water and then, furiously, started tossing out seaweed, occasionally throwing something into three white plastic buckets. The net, now empty, was being dragged back to the boat by the men. The woman waded to a small stretch of beach, whipped out a clipboard and briskly started taking notes.

I shouted, “What‘s happening?”

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“The Environmental Conservation Department,” she explained, “is determining what fish - shell fish and such - can be found in the bay.”

Therefore, it seemed only appropriate that I mention my hunter-fisherman father, who long ago went eeling at that very spot.

In fact, Emil Brock, my husband, was courting. The war was on, so we’d date with his black Oldsmobile on a Saturday night. To make a good impression on Sunday, he'd bike over from Richmond Hill at 5 a.m. and go along with my father.

A father and son (no pen, I never got their names) from Douglaston, biking along the Fitness Mile, also stopped to view the scene last week at Little Neck Bay.

“I know the Japanese loved eels and say that it's the favorite fish of American tourists, but what about the Chinese?” I asked the father.

“We boil them and steam them,” he told me. “If we have too many, they are sun-dried to cook in winter.” 

Eeling was a part of my upbringing. Dad speared them and brought them home in a burlap sack. He’d empty the contents onto the basement floor. After a very intent inspection, I’d gleefully hand him the wiggliest one to skin - an idea that definitely does not appeal to me now, so I wonder how could I have done it then.

Yet today, adventuresome tourists go to New Zeeland’s South Island, where Kiwi Dundee, cousin of Australia’s Crocodile Dundee, escorts them to a private pond and dangles a piece of bacon. 

“Eels come to feed and slide over your hand,” said Douglastonian Gloria Kemper Bodie, who vacationed there with her sister.

After Dad and Emil speared the eels, then came the smoking. Emil and I had built a brick barbecue (just becoming fashionable) in the vegetable garden behind my house. (Good Housekeeping later photographed it with chicken on the grill for a BBQ feature.)

It was about six feet high and featured a chimney with three clay pipes protruding. Dad would take a stick with nails about an inch apart, hang the eels on it, lower them down the chimney pipes and let the short smoking process proceed. Smoked eel are fabulous.

I remember, Emil and I, on our first trip to Europe (London, Paris and Amsterdam), we were walking along Amsterdam’s main street. We came upon an alcove that had an automat with cubbyholes – each of which held a plate with smoked eel in a roll - that opened when you deposited a nickel. Smoked eel sandwiches for five cents! Bliss.

I have simmered pieces of skinned eel in red wine with shallots sautéed in butter as well as salt and pepper and found it delicious. Although eel versions of sushi are the ones I go for, my favorite Japanese eel preparation was at Daruma in Great Neck. And then, there was that sensational dragon-looking, six-inch section of slashed, stuffed, cold cooked eel at Tokyo Tavern, which is upstate in the college town of Oneonta.

On the North Fork, where eels are speared, they skin and cut them in two-inch pieces and sauté them breaded.

In a House and Garden Cookbook that includes contributions from James Beard, Julia Child, Craig Clairborne and many other famous chefs, there are three eel recipes: Smoked Eel and Cheese (heavy dark rye or pumpernickel, cream cheese, onions and capers), Anguilles au Vert  (chopped herbs, puree of spinach and white wine) and Matelote of Eel (tarragon, vodka and cider with a cream sauce).

So, give eel a try, prepared hot or cold, the next time you find it on a menu. The culinary adventurous will buy eel at a local Asian super market and try one of these House and Garden recipes.

Smoked Eel and Cheese

Use thickish slices of heavy dark rye or pumpernickel. Butter the bread and spread with cream cheese. Add a layer of thinly sliced onions, a layer of thinly sliced smoked eel, some capers and chopped parsley.

Variation: Substitute smoked salmon or smoked sturgeon for the eel.

Anguilles Au Vert

1 cup olive oil

3 pounds eel, cut in 1 ¼” pieces

1 quart broth

½ cup chopped herbs (parsley, chervil, mint, chives, puree of spinach)

Juice of 3 lemons

1 pint white wine

Salt, pepper

Heat the oil. Sauté the pieces of eel in the hot oil for five minutes, turning them to cook on all sides. Add the broth, bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Add the herbs, lemon juice, wine, salt and pepper to taste and bring once more to a boil. Turn off the heat and let stand until cool. Serves 6-8.

Matelote of Eel

1 onion

2 carrots

2 stalks celery

2 leeks

2 sprigs parsley

1 teaspoon dried tarragon or 1 stalk fresh

2 eels, skinned and cut in 2” pieces

½ cup vodka

1 cup cider

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 cup cream

3 egg yolks

Dash of lemon juice

Fried croutons for serving

Dice onion and cut carrots, celery, and leeks julienne. Arrange this Mirepoix on the bottom of a heavy saucepan. Add parsley, tarragon and eels. Pour vodka and cider over the mixture. Add salt. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until eel is tender. Remove eel to a hot serving dish.

Strain liquid. Combine 1/3 cup liquid and 1 cup Mirepoix in an electric blender. Blend and pour into a saucepan. Repeat with more liquid and Mirepoix. Add remaining liquid, bring to a boil and reduce slightly. Gradually stir in cream mixed with egg yolks. Stir until well blended and thickened. Correct seasoning and add lemon juice. Pour sauce over eel. Serve with fried croutons. Serves 4-6.

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