Perfect Pairings & Recipes for
Smoked Eel

Exquisite smoked eel flavour pairings and recipes, revealed through data science.

Smoky depths and oceanic notes are at the forefront of smoked eel's flavour profile, but identifying its perfect partner requires exploring its subtle nuances. We must examine the complex interplay of notes within its bouquet, like char, protease, and hints of caramel. We need to understand how these notes affect each other and which complementary flavors they harmonise with.

To chart these harmonies, we analysed thousands of ingredients, each deconstructed across 150 distinct flavour dimensions, pinpointing the notes that best complement this ingredient’s profile. Our exploration reveals, for instance, how the fresh, green cis-3-hexenol in flat-leaf parsley can carry smoked eel, and how red onion's cepaceous notes forge a beautiful synergy with its smoky depths.

An ingredient's flavour comes from its core characteristics, like maillard, carnal, and woody, combined with its unique aroma notes (outer bars). When pairing ingredients, aim to include a broad variety of core characteristics for a balanced dish. And choose aroma notes that complement each other for a harmonious combination.

The Art of Flavour Pairing

To understand how flavour notes harmonise, we analysed more than 50,000 popular ingredient combinations. By exploring these pairings, we identified specific flavour notes that frequently occur together, indicating they share a harmonious relationship.

The Flavours That Harmonise With Smoky Notes

Our analysis shows that the flavour of smoke is strongly associated with the flavour of onion. This suggests we should look for ingredients with a oniony flavour, such as red onion, when pairing with the smoky accents of smoked eel.

The recipe below provides inspiration for pairing smoked eel with red onion.

Harmonious Flavours Of Smoked Eel

Just as our analysis highlighted that smoke and oniony flavours often complement each other, we can identify the full profile of flavours that harmonise with each of the flavours present in smoked eel. E.g. the fermented proteins notes of smoked eel are often used with bay leaf and green flavours.

The aroma accents associated with the various aroma accents of smoked eel can be seen highlighted in the pink bars below.

Matching Flavour Profiles

The flavour profile of flat-leaf parsley offers many of the aroma notes complementary to smoked eel, including leafy and grassy notes. Because the flavour profile of flat-leaf parsley has many of the of the features that are complementary to smoked eel, they are likely to pair very well together.

The chart above shows the unique profile of flat-leaf parsley across 150 dimensions of flavour, while the recipes below offer inspiration for bringing these flavours together with smoked eel.

Recipes That Pair Smoked Eel With Flat-leaf Parsley

Linked Flavour Notes

Looking at the notes that are most strongly associated with the various flavours of smoked eel, we can identify other ingredients that are likely to pair well.

The left side of the chart above highlights the aroma notes of smoked eel, along with the complementary aromas associated with each note. While the right side shows some of the ingredients that share many of the accents complementary to smoked eel.

What To Drink With Smoked Eel

The corn notes in mexican lager make it a perfect pairing with smoked eel. Likewise, the leafy flavours in kale juice create a match made in heaven. Explore a variety of ingredients below that beautifully complement the unique character of smoked eel below.

Which Vegetables Go With Smoked Eel?

Choose vegetables that enrich its smokiness or cut through its marine aroma. Garlic scape and spring onion offer vibrant, clean counterpoints, their verdant freshness lifting the palate. Savoy cabbage add a gentle, oniony brightness, while salad leaves introduces a sophisticated, anise-tinged elegance.

Alternatively, embrace vegetables that harmonise with smoked eel's savoryness. The addition of sorrel, with its subtle leafy notes, can complement the protease beautifully, while pea lends a fresh aroma.

How Flavonomics Works

We've pioneered a unique, data-driven approach to decode the intricate art of flavour pairing. Our goal is to move beyond intuition and uncover the science of why certain ingredients harmonise beautifully. This rigorous methodology allows us to provide you with insightful and reliable pairing recommendations.

Our analysis begins with over 50,000 carefully selected recipes from acclaimed chefs like Galton Blackiston, Marcello Tully, and Pierre Lambinon. This premium dataset ensures our model distils genuine culinary excellence and creativity.

Each ingredient from these recipes is deconstructed across 150 distinct flavour dimensions, creating a unique numerical "flavour fingerprint." This quantification allows us to apply advanced analytical methods to identify complex patterns between flavour notes.

We identify popular ingredient combinations that frequently appear in our recipe database. Regression analysis is then performed on these pairings to statistically validate and pinpoint truly harmonious flavours.

These insights drive our predictive model, which allows us to take any ingredient (e.g., Smoked eel), analyse its detailed flavour profile, and accurately reveal its complementary flavours and perfect ingredient partners.