Name: To Boil Pike
Ingredients: 1 pike; 1 cup vinegar; water (enough to cover the fish); coarse sea salt; oyster forcemeat or veal forcemeat (optional); plain melted butter or anchovy sauce (for serving)

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

1 pike
1 cup vinegar
water (enough to cover the fish)
coarse sea salt
oyster forcemeat or veal forcemeat (optional)
plain melted butter or anchovy sauce (for serving)

Directions

Prepare the fish

Remove the gills and clean the pike thoroughly.
Soak the fish in a mixture of 1 cup vinegar and enough water to cover it for 30 minutes to avoid a muddy taste.
Dry the inside of the fish and fill it with oyster or veal forcemeat if desired.
Curl the fish and fasten it with the tail in the mouth.

Boil and serve

Place it on a fish plate and cover with cold water.
Add coarse sea salt as soon as the water boils.
Skim the surface and boil gently for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size.
Serve with plain melted butter 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.

Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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, whose firm flesh holds its shape through gentle boiling.
Vinegar: Soaking in vinegar and water helps remove the muddy flavour from the fish.
Oyster or veal forcemeat: Adds moisture and richness to the fish as it cooks inside the body cavity.