How to Cook an Eel

Catch any eel that swims by your legs while you are knee-deep in the mud creating a rice field. Be sure to only catch the eels and not the leeches. Put them in a bucket with water. Prepare the eels for cooking and cut them into small pieces (this is the bloody part of the recipe). Put lots garlic, lemon grass, yellow ginger and salt into a mixer and create a tasty paste. Put the paste into a hot pan over a wooden fire, stir it for a minute and then add the eel. Let it cook for about five minutes. Add coriander and as many chili as you like. (Optional: Add water to make an eel soup.)

Enjoy your meal!

DSCF1482 DSCF1481 DSCF1480

Ok, here is the background to this “cooking tutorial”: During my last days at the Mirror Foundation we turned a big meadow into a couple of rice fields. When working, the local people who helped us continued to catch eels out of the water around us. After work was done, a group of us was invited to eat that eel in the farmer’s hut just some steps away from the fields. It was really exciting to watch how the meal was prepared (of course that included killing the eels first). We even got a “western” version of the soup; in the rest of it, they threw in a whole bunch of chilies. A very good experience altogether!

Leave a Reply