Skin them, cut them into four-inch lengths, season them with salt and
pepper, roll them in flour or salted corn-meal, and fry them in boiling
lard. Some parboil eels and bull-heads, saying it removes a muddy taste.
I do not think it is necessary. Fried eels are generally served with a
tomato, a pickle, or a _Tartare_ sauce.
EELS STEWED (_London Cooking-school_).
Put three-quarters of a cupful of butter into a stew-pan; when hot, add
four small onions minced fine, which cook to a light-brown color; add
then a table-spoonful of flour; when well mixed and cooked, add two
cupfuls of stock, a wine-glassful of port-wine, and two bay leaves (the
bay leaves may be omitted). Now put in the eels (two small ones or one
large one), cut into pieces one inch long. Cover tightly.
They will be ready to send to the table in about fifteen minutes, served
on a hot platter, with a circle around them of toasted or fried slices
of bread (_croûtons_), cut diamond-shaped.