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Larded Pike

A whole pike stuffed with salt pork, baked and served with a claret gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,187 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Larded Pike

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and wash the fish.

  2. Make crosswise incisions in the sides and insert strips of solid fat salt pork.

  3. Place the fish in a dripping pan.

Bake and baste

  1. Pour boiling water over the fish.

  2. Bake covered for 30 minutes.

  3. Baste often with the pan juices.

  4. Continue basting every 5 minutes until the fish is tender and browned.

  5. Carefully lift the fish to a hot-water dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  4. Add claret to the gravy.

  5. Serve the fish in a boat.

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. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Pork and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently until flaky and tender.
Solid fat salt pork
Strips of fat melt during baking, adding moisture and richness to the lean fish.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Continue basting every 5 minutes until the fish is tender and browned. Pike is lean and dries out easily. Regular basting with pan juices keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, while the fish cooks through gently without toughening.

“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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