fried apples with conger eel in cider

I bought Conger Eel by accident because my written Spanish is even worse than my spoken Spanish. It looked like fish, and was wide enough to be fish... but upon babelfish translation lo and behold I had eel. "So, now that I have eel what do I do with it?" My only eel experience was with the yummy Unagi sushi, and I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to reproduce that.

The internet is my friend for recipes, and I came across an interesting British site about Conger Eel and stole a few ideas from them. Strangely enough, eel (conger eel at least) does not taste like much on it's own and is more soft and less flaky than other fishy things. As a warning: This is very fried, but not greasy and carb-o-licious - so it might not fit with a weight loss diet. We enjoyed it, see what you come up with. :)

Ingredients:

1 filet of conger eel (270g)

1 750mL bottle of sparkling cider (alcoholic or not)

2 large red apples

1 big onion

7-8 small baby potatoes

1/2 cup of flour

1 tbsp. of butter

1 tbsp. of virgin olive oil

2 bay leaves

1 tsp. of thyme

2 tsps. of salt

Put your cut up onion (any size will do), butter, olive oil, thyme, bay leaves, and 1 tsp. of salt in a frying pan and sauté the onion until soft on medium heat. You will be cooking these onions for a long time later so don't wait until they're crispy.

Rinse your eel (you can substitute any other fish for this recipe - no eel is not the end of the world), cut it in half and dip it in the flour. Make sure it's fully covered.

Turn the heat under your onion pan to high and sear the eel until it's light brown on both sides. Put the eel in an oven safe dish and pour in some cider until it's about half way up the side of the eel. Turn your oven on to 302°F/150°C to warm and set the eel aside for now.

You should have enough cider left over to have a cup while making the food and some for drinking while eating too.

You should have your potatoes cut into thin slices before any of this happens, and toss them into the frying pan with the onions - turn the heat down to medium again. Let these cook for about ten minutes. Potatoes take a damn long time to cook. Put your eel in the oven now. Then toss in the apple chunks (various sizes will do) and cover the frying pan. Walk away and drink some cider for about 15 minutes. Come back and marvel that the potatoes are still not cooked. Stir it around so that it does not stick to the pan. You might have to add some more oil at this point if it's looking gungy.

Throw in a splash of cider, cover it and go away again. Come back when you smell apples or in another ten minutes. Your eel will be cooked when the cider is boiling a little bit around the edges of your dish and the flesh is white. Your potato/apple thing will be done when you can cut through a potato slice easily with your spatula. I found this incredibly yummy and I think that the apple side dish would be an amazing accompaniment to a turkey dinner.