Wild-caught eel
- Provenance
- Producer details will appear here when verified.
- History
- Dutch and Frisian smokehouses have hung eel over oak since the Middle Ages; a smoked eel was currency in the Hanseatic ports.
Sealed, numbered and signed by the hand that made it.
THE SMOKEHOUSE
Smoked Eel in Oil
Beechwood-smoked eel, boned warm and set in cold-pressed oil with lemon peel.
$34
Pre-launch
Release notes on the Cellar List.
Pre-launch: we're not taking orders quite yet. Add pieces to your case and it will be held for you — join the Cellar List for first notice when we open.
Cold Cellar / ships chilled
Ships chilled and must be kept refrigerated. Recipes, packaging and validated shelf-life vary by product — final storage and shelf-life instructions will be confirmed on the product label before release.
- Origin
- Producer details will appear when verified
- Batch
- TBC · PRE-LAUNCH
- Pairing
- Oloroso, or a smoky Islay dram
- Batch size
- Made in small released batches
- Keeping
- Ships chilled and must be kept refrigerated. Final storage and shelf-life instructions will be confirmed on the product label before release.
- On the palate
- Extraordinarily rich, dense smoke, an almost sweet finish. A little goes far.
Where this dish comes from
Smoked eel is a food of the great river deltas — the Rhine, the Elbe, the Thames, the Po. In medieval England eel was valuable enough to be used as a form of rent payment in some records.
Dutch and North German smokehouses developed a staged hot-smoking method, raising the temperature in steps so the skin sets before the fat renders.
Smoked eel remains a national dish in the Netherlands and a longstanding specialty of smokehouses along several major European rivers.
How we make it
Temperature is raised in stages: lower to set the skin, then higher to render fat and finish, since jumping straight to high heat splits the skin.
Boning is done warm, within a short window, since cold eel does not release its pin bones cleanly.
Brine, hot smoke over beech
12 hours brine · 3 hours smoke
- 01Eel brined twelve hours in salt and bay, then hung to dry.
- 02Hot-smoked three hours over beech, rising from 45°C to 80°C in stages.
- 03Boned warm; the pin bones lift out cleanly only in the first ten minutes.
- 04Packed in cold-pressed sunflower oil with lemon peel and white pepper.
On dark bread with horseradish cream and pickled cucumber.
THE INGREDIENT LEDGER
Every defining ingredient, named where we can: what it is, and what it has meant to the people who kept it. Producer and sourcing details will appear here as they are verified.
Oak smoke
- Provenance
- Producer details will appear here when verified.
- History
- Oak is the Low Countries' smoke — slow, dry, faintly tannic, and the reason Dutch eel tastes like nowhere else.
Recipes, packaging, storage instructions and shelf-life vary by product and validated production method. Follow the instructions on the label; keep chilled items refrigerated.
