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To Bake Pike

A whole pike stuffed with bread crumbs, anchovies, oysters, suet, spices, and parsley, baked and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Bake Pike

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Stuff the pike with bread crumbs, anchovies, oysters, suet, salt, pepper, mace, and parsley.

  2. Bind the stuffing with the eggs and sew the pike closed, twisting the tail in its mouth.

Bake

  1. Place the pike in a greased tin dish and cover with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the fish gravy with butter and flour, then add anchovy sauce, soy sauce, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Serve the gravy in a boat and garnish with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body of the dish and holds the stuffing while it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add bulk to the stuffing, giving it a soft texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during baking.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and, with flour, forms the base that thickens it.
Flour
Thickens the fish gravy when cooked with butter.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, oyster, pepper, parsley, egg, butter, flour. 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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