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Pike, Stewed

Stewed Pike is a fish dish cooked with bacon, butter, stock, sherry, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pike, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, clean, and dry the pike.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Place the pike inside the saucepan.

  4. Cover the pike with slices of bacon.

Stew

  1. Put a close-fitting lid on the saucepan.

  2. Cook the fish in the steam for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the stock and sherry.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Simmer gently for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with the gravy strained around.

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. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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 gently until it flakes and stays moist in the stew.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour that seasons the fish as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the fish start cooking without sticking to the pan.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic sweetness that give the gravy depth.
Stock
Provides the liquid that becomes the gravy and keeps the fish moist.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 1 hour. Fish is delicate and the protein toughens and dries if it boils hard. A gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps the flesh moist and tender.

“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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