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Pike with Egg Sauce

A pike fillet cooked with butter, onions, celery root, parsley root, lemon, and finished with an almond‑egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pike with Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Salt the inside and outside of the pike.

  2. Heat the salt to help it penetrate the fish.

Poach the pike

  1. In a porcelain-lined kettle, melt the butter.

  2. Add the chopped onion, celery root, parsley root, and lemon slices.

  3. Place the pike in the kettle, either whole or sliced.

  4. Add enough water to just cover the fish and season with more salt and peppercorns.

  5. Boil the fish quickly until cooked.

  6. Check doneness by pulling on the fins.

  7. Remove the fish to a large platter when done.

Make the egg sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Mix in the pounded almonds and cold water.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve.

  4. Discard the lemon slices.

  5. Combine the strained liquid with the egg mixture.

  6. Stir constantly.

  7. Return the sauce to the kettle.

  8. Stir until it boils.

  9. Remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  2. Garnish with curly parsley when cool.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,843 recipes

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

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 gently in the poaching liquid until it flakes.
Egg yolks
Thicken the strained cooking liquid into a smooth, creamy sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the poaching base a rounded, silky mouthfeel.
Almonds
Pounded into a paste, they add body and a nutty flavour that thickens the sauce.
Celery root
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the poaching liquid that carries into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg sauce as it heats. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat but can scramble if they get too hot or stand still. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the sauce turns smooth and creamy rather than curdled.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, celery, parsley, lemon, fish, egg):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, celery, parsley, lemon, fish, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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