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Pike, Baked

Baked pike served with a butter‑flour gravy flavored with shallot, parsley, mushroom ketchup, anchovy essence, sherry, and gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pike, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and scale the pike by pouring boiling water over it, then plunge it into cold water and remove the scales with the back of a knife.

  2. Wipe the fish dry, fill it with veal stuffing, oyster stuffing, or forcemeat, and truss it by tying the head and tail together.

Bake

  1. Place the pike in a shallow circular dish, add butter pieces, broth or water, minced shallot, and chopped parsley.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until cooked through, basting frequently to keep it moist.

  3. Once done, carefully lift the fish onto a serving dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the gravy, thicken it with 2 ounces of butter and 2 ounces of flour, then add mushroom ketchup or essence of anchovy, salt, cayenne, sherry, and chopped gherkins.

  2. Boil the sauce for 10 minutes, pour some over the pike, and serve the rest in a tureen.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pike
Is the main protein, cooked through by gentle oven heat in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the dish, and thickens the sauce with flour.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy together with butter into a smooth sauce.
Broth or water
Provides cooking liquid that keeps the fish moist and forms the base of the gravy.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in oven heat. Regular basting with the cooking liquid keeps the flesh moist while it cooks through, and the liquid becomes the base for the gravy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, flour, mushroom, sherry):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, flour, mushroom, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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