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To Bake Pike

A baked pike stuffed with forcemeat or salt, cayenne, and butter, then coated in flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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 fish

  1. Pour warm water over the fish and wipe it clean with a coarse cloth, moving from head to tail to avoid disturbing the scales.

  2. Wash the fish in cold water, empty it, and clean the inside thoroughly.

  3. Fill the fish with forcemeat or a mixture of salt, cayenne, and butter.

  4. Sew the fish up and fasten the tail to the mouth.

  5. Dredge the outside lightly with flour.

  6. Dot the fish with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes for moderate-sized pike, or 1 to 1.5 hours for large pike.

  2. If needed, cover with buttered paper to prevent over-browning or drying out.

  3. Serve with melted butter and lemon or anchovy sauce if there is not enough sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 whose firm, flaky flesh becomes the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness as it melts, helping keep the lean fish from drying out.
Flour
Light dusting on the outside helps the skin brown and gives a slightly drier surface.
Common forcemeat
Fills the cavity with a seasoned stuffing that adds moisture and flavour to the fish.

The step that matters

Covering with buttered paper. Pike is lean, so over-browning or drying out is a risk during the long bake. Covering the fish with buttered paper slows surface browning while the inside cooks through and stays moist.

“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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