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To Boil Pike

Boiled pike stuffed with forcemeat, served with butter and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and oyster work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 496 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Boil Pike

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills, empty, and clean the pike thoroughly.

  2. Soak the fish in a mixture of 1 cup vinegar and enough water to cover it for 30 minutes.

  3. Dry the inside of the fish and fill it with oyster or veal forcemeat.

  4. Curl the fish and fasten it with the tail in the mouth.

Boil and serve

  1. Place it in a pot, cover with cold water, and add salt once it boils.

  2. Skim the surface and boil gently for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on size.

  3. Serve with melted butter, sauce-cruets, and lemon, or with Dutch, brown caper, or anchovy 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. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + fishtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pike
The main fish, which is cooked whole in water until it is tender and flaky.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the soak, giving the fish a sharper, cleaner flavour.
Oyster or veal forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and savoury richness to the stuffed fish.
Butter or suet
Adds fat to the forcemeat, enriching its texture and keeping it moist.

The step that matters

Boil gently. Once the water boils, keep it at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil. Vigorous boiling can break up the delicate flesh and make the fish dry and ragged, while gentle heat cooks it evenly and keeps it 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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