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Common Eel Soup

4 servings

Ingredients

• 1.5 l Beef broth
• 1 soup plate Pears, peeled and quartered
• 1 soup plate Young peas, shelled
• Carrots, finely diced (a little)
• 625 g Eel
• Salt (a little)
• Herbs (chervil, purslane or sorrel, tarragon, basil, thyme, marjoram, parsley) (a little)
• Lemon slices (a little)
• Flour, sautéed in butter (a little)
• White bread or sponge dumplings (as needed)

Instructions

1. Boil 1½ liters of good beef broth.
2. After 1½ hours of cooking, add one soup plate of peeled, quartered pears, the same amount of shelled young peas, and finely diced carrots.
3. Skin the eel, cut it into finger-width pieces, rub with salt, wash, and parboil with water and salt.
4. Then add it to the soup.
5. Add finely chopped herbs such as chervil, purslane or sorrel, tarragon, basil, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and a few lemon slices, depending on what you have on hand.
6. Shortly before serving, thicken with flour sautéed in plenty of butter and arrange with white bread or sponge dumplings, cooked in salted water, in the soup.

Modernized from a treasured 19th-century German cookbook.