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To Bake Pike

A whole pike stuffed with bread, herbs, anchovies, oysters, suet, cream, and egg yolks, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Bake 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 stuffing

  1. Scale the pike.

  2. Open the pike near the throat.

  3. Prepare the stuffing by mixing grated bread, herbs, anchovies, oysters, suet, salt, pepper, mace, cream, and egg yolks.

  4. Mix the stuffing over heat until it thickens.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the pike with the mixture and sew it up.

  2. Dot the top with small bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  4. Serve with a sauce made from gravy, butter, and essence of anchovy.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

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 that is stuffed and baked whole.
Grated bread
Absorbs the cream and yolks to give the stuffing body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the stuffing as they set with gentle heat.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the stuffing.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and tender.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Mix the stuffing over heat until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated gently, but if the mixture gets too hot it can curdle and turn grainy. Stir constantly and stop heating once it thickens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, lemon, bread, oyster, pepper, cream, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, lemon, bread, oyster, pepper, cream, egg. 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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