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To Bake Pike or Bream

A whole pike or bream 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) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Bake Pike or Bream

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale the fish and open it near the throat. Clean the fish.

Make and add the stuffing

  1. Mix the stuffing over low heat until it thickens, using grated bread, herbs, anchovies, oysters, suet, salt, pepper, mace, cream, and egg yolks.

  2. Fill the fish with the thickened stuffing and sew it up.

Bake and serve

  1. Dot the top of the fish with small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour.

  3. Serve with a sauce made of gravy, butter, and 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pike or bream
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and holding the stuffing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream-based stuffing as they gently set during cooking.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the stuffing soft as it cooks.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the stuffing body and texture.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the stuffing and keeps it moist.
Anchovies
Add savory depth and saltiness that enhances the flavor of the stuffing.

The step that matters

Thickening the stuffing over low heat. Egg yolks set at moderate temperatures and can scramble if the heat is too high. Gentle heat lets the cream and yolks thicken smoothly into a stable stuffing.

Swap the mace

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

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

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