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To Boil Pike

A stuffed pike cooked in a seasoned broth with oysters and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Boil Pike

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the gills and guts from the Pike and wash it thoroughly.

  2. In a bowl, mix chopped oysters, bread crumbs, lemon peel, butter, egg yolks, and sweet herbs. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the belly of the fish and sew it up. Skewer the fish to secure it.

Boil and serve

  1. In a pot, bring water to a boil and add salt and vinegar.

  2. Once boiling, add the fish and cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve with oyster sauce poured over the fish and garnish with pickled barberries.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 of the dish, cooked whole in the poaching liquid.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing and the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and enrich its texture as they set with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Securing the stuffed fish before boiling. Stuffing expands and can escape during cooking if the belly is not sewn and skewered closed. Keeping the fish whole and secure lets it cook evenly while the stuffing sets in the cavity.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, lemon, butter, egg, pepper, vinegar. 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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