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Pike, Larded and Roasted

A whole pike stuffed with veal forcemeat, larded with bacon, wrapped in paper with herbs, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,049 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pike, Larded and Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale and clean the pike, removing the gills and emptying the fish.

  2. Lard the pike thickly with strips of fresh bacon.

  3. Fill the pike with veal forcemeat and sew the body securely with soft cotton.

Wrap and roast

  1. Butter a piece of paper thickly, cover it with sweet herbs, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Wrap the fish in the paper and lay it in a cradle-spit, basting with butter.

  3. Roast for 25 to 35 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with piquant or caper sauce 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. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pike
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through gently inside its wrapping.
Fresh bacon strips
Larding fat melts into the lean fish, keeping it moist and adding savoury flavour.
Veal forcemeat
Fills the cavity with a soft stuffing that adds richness and moisture as it cooks.
Butter
Fat that basting and buttered paper use to keep the surface moist and golden.

The step that matters

Roast for 25 to 35 minutes. Fish protein sets and turns dry once overcooked, while a thick stuffed fish stays underdone at the centre if removed too early. Checking doneness within the window matters because the flesh firms quickly as it reaches the set point.

“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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