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Boiled Pike with Egg Sauce

A boiled pike served with a sauce made from eggs, garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Tie the pike in a circle by putting its tail into its mouth and stitch the head and tail to hold it in place.

Poach

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

  2. Add the pike to the cold water mixture and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil until the fins pull off easily, then remove the skin if desired.

Serve

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

  2. Garnish with a sprig of parsley on one side 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. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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, supplying the flesh that is cooked gently in the liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the poaching liquid and gives the fish a sharper flavour.
Lemon
Contributes acidity and aroma to the poaching liquid and the finished platter.

The step that matters

Bring the pike to a boil and boil until the fins pull off easily. Fish protein sets as it heats, and overcooking makes the flesh dry and tough. Watching the fins, which loosen as the flesh cooks through, is a practical sign of doneness.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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