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Stuffing for Pike

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffing for Pike

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine 2 cups of bread crumbs and ⅓ cup of beef suet in a bowl.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, parsley, minced lemon rind, fennel, and chervil.

  3. Moisten the mixture with 1 or 2 egg yolks.

  4. If using, mince ½ dozen mushrooms and add to the mixture, or mince 12 oysters.

  5. For oyster stuffing, mix 4 ounces of bread crumbs, 3 ounces of suet, savory herbs, and seasonings with the oyster liquor and an egg yolk until smooth.

  6. Wipe the body of the pike dry with a soft cloth before stuffing.

  7. Stuff the pike and sew it up securely with soft cotton.

  8. If you have extra stuffing, form it into cakes and fry in butter for garnishing.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Fennel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, beef, pepper, parsley, lemon, chervil, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, pepper, parsley, lemon, chervil, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.