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Baked Pike

A whole pike stuffed with suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and seasonings, baked with gravy, wine, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 ↓

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. Soak the cleaned pike in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the beef suet, bread crumbs, anchovy sauce, herbs, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg, lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, beaten egg, and cream until well combined.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the pike.

  4. Place the stuffed pike in a baking dish.

Bake and baste

  1. Add the gravy, Marsala wine, anchovy sauce, soy sauce, mushroom ketchup, strained lemon juice, and chopped shallots to the dish.

  2. Melt the butter and baste the fish frequently with it.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the sauce into a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the baked flour and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Add the chopped parsley to the sauce.

  4. Serve the pike on a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 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

Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together while baking.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat and browning to the fish as it is basted.
Baked flour
Thickens the sauce as it boils.
Marsala wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Baste the fish frequently with butter. Pike is lean and dries out easily in the oven, so regular basting with melted butter keeps the flesh moist and promotes gentle browning.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, anchovy, sauce, pepper, lemon, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, anchovy, sauce, pepper, 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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