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To Bake Pike

A whole pike stuffed with forcemeat, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Bake Pike

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the gills from the fish and open it just enough to clean the inside.

  2. Wipe the fish dry and hang it in a cool place for 1‑2 hours or wrap it in a soft cloth.

  3. Fill the fish with the chosen forcemeat and sew it up securely.

  4. Curl the fish and fasten the tail into the mouth with a thin skewer.

Coat and bake

  1. Dip the fish in the beaten eggs seasoned with salt and pepper.

  2. Cover the fish with bread crumbs, then dip it again in the egg and crumbs.

  3. Pour clarified butter over the fish through a small strainer.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes, longer if the fish is large.

  5. Do not leave the fish in the oven after it is done.

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

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 and cooks into moist, flaky flesh.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the bread crumbs adhere to the fish and help form a crust.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the oven.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour on the crumb coating.
Forcemeat
Adds a seasoned filling that stays moist and softens the fish's lean flesh.

The step that matters

Do not leave the fish in the oven after it is done. Fish protein tightens and dries quickly once it reaches doneness, so overbaking turns the flesh tough and dry even under a protective coating.

“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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