OK, so I’m a big sushi fan and have enjoyed eel rolls for a long time. So, tonight I decided to try it out of roll for the first time. So as I masticated my naked unagi, I thought that it tasted like albacore tuna. My mother remarked that it tasted like chicken (not jokingly) and my sister couldn’t discern a distinct taste through the sauce they used.
So, I thought I’d put the question out there. For those of you who’ve tried eel before, how would describe the taste? (And please don’t say “fishy”)
It is a dense, meaty white fish - chicken is a reasonably apt comparison for the texture. Tuna or swordfish for the flavour?- perhaps with a slight shellfishy sweetness that one might normally associate with crab,
I’m with Mangetout but it is many years ago that I tried it. Also, I ate fresh water eels so maybe their salt water cousins could have a different taste.
For me it depends a lot on the sauce, but I would have to say tastes like chicken, but feels like calamari at times with it being chewy and slender the way it feels when you bite into it.
Another “it tastes like chicken”- or like frog legs actually. It’s also very very boney. Quite good though.
Completely unsolicited trivia: King John of England died from food poisoning after eating eels. They probably were the exception though, and could well have had help getting poisoned.
The only time I’ve ever had it, it tasted mostly like the barbecue sauce that was on it, but it was more like chicken-with-BBQ-sauce than like most other things with BBQ sauce.