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Baked Pike

A whole pike stuffed, coated, and baked with onions, herbs, stock, and sherry, served with a sauce of butter, flour, anchovy essence, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Baked Pike

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Stuff the Pike with the same stuffing used for a fillet of Teal.

  2. Sew the belly closed with pack thread.

  3. Turn the Pike around by putting the tail in the mouth.

  4. Run a skewer through the head to secure it.

  5. Coat the Pike with egg.

  6. Sprinkle bread crumbs over it.

  7. Drizzle with clarified butter.

Bake

  1. In a baking dish, place the sliced onions.

  2. Add the sweet herbs, stock, and sherry wine.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. After baking, strain the liquid from the Pike.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  4. Add enough flour to absorb the fat.

  5. Stir in the baking liquid.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Let it simmer for a few minutes.

  8. Add essence of anchovies.

  9. Strain through a tammy.

  10. Keep the sauce warm until serving.

Serve

  1. Squeeze lemon juice over the Pike.

  2. Place it on a serving dish.

  3. Pour sauce around it.

  4. Remove the pack thread.

  5. Garnish with picked parsley in the center of the Pike.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

What each ingredient does

Pike
Is the main fish, cooked whole so its flesh stays moist and tender while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and carries flavour through the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing the fat and binding the baking liquid.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the baking liquid, deepening the sauce flavour.
Onions
Soften during baking and sweeten the stock that becomes the sauce base.
Egg (in the method)
Acts as a binder so the bread crumb coating adheres to the fish.

The step that matters

Absorbing the fat with flour. Flour must be cooked with the butter and fat before the baking liquid is added. Stirring in too little or too much flour leaves lumps or a thin, greasy sauce, because flour thickens only when its starch gelatinises in hot liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, parsley, basil, marjoram, sherry, wine, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, parsley, basil, marjoram, sherry, wine, butter. 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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