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Boiled Pike with Egg Sauce

A boiled pike served with an egg sauce poured inside the fish circle, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Boiled Pike with Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the fish and tie it in a circle by placing its tail in its mouth, securing it with a trussing needle.

Poach

  1. In a pot, combine water, vinegar, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaf, and salt.

  2. Add the fish to the cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Cook until the fins pull off easily; remove the skin if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve with egg sauce poured inside the fish circle.

  2. Garnish with a sprig of parsley and lemon slices on the platter.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pike
The main fish, poached whole so its flesh cooks gently and stays moist.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, which helps firm the flesh and brighten its flavour.
Salt
Seasons the fish and poaching liquid so the flesh tastes evenly seasoned throughout.

The step that matters

Adding the fish to cold water. Starting the fish in cold water and heating slowly lets the flesh warm gradually, so it stays tender and does not toughen or break apart. Bringing it to a boil too fast can cook the outside before the centre is done.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, lemon, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, lemon, parsley. 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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