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To Bake Pike

A baked pike seasoned with salt, cayenne, butter, and optional forcemeat, served with lemon or anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Bake 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. Pour warm water over the fish and wipe it clean with a coarse cloth, moving from head to tail to avoid disturbing the scales.

  2. Wash the fish well in cold water, empty it, and clean the inside thoroughly.

  3. Fill the fish with common forcemeat or a mixture of fine salt, cayenne, and bits of butter, then sew it up and fasten the tail to the mouth.

  4. Dredge the outside lightly with flour and place small bits of butter on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes for moderate-sized pike, or 1 to 1.5 hours for large pike.

  2. Cover with buttered paper if the outside is browning too quickly.

  3. If the fish lacks sauce, serve with melted butter and lemon 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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
The main fish, whose firm flesh holds its shape and flakes during baking.
Flour
Lightly dusted on the outside, it helps the skin brown and form a delicate crust.
Butter
Melts over the fish, adding moisture and richness and helping the surface brown.
Common forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and body to the inside of the fish as it bakes.

The step that matters

Covering the browning fish. The outside can darken faster than the thick centre cooks through. Covering it with buttered paper slows browning and keeps the surface from scorching before the flesh is done.

“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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