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Baked Pike

A whole pike stuffed with bread, suet, parsley, butter, and seasonings, coated in eggs and bread, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked 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. Scrape the scales off the pike and remove the gills without breaking the skin.

  2. Clean the fish and stuff it with a forcemeat made of grated bread, minced suet, parsley, butter, and seasonings.

  3. Fasten the tail of the pike into its mouth with a skewer.

Coat and bake

  1. Dip the stuffed pike first into beaten eggs, then coat it with grated bread, repeating twice.

  2. Baste the pike with butter and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. When the fish is golden brown, cover it with paper until fully cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with a Dutch sauce in a sauce‑tureen.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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, cooking to firm, flaky flesh under dry oven heat.
Grated bread
Forms the stuffing and crumb coating that gives a crisp, browned exterior.
Eggs
Bind the bread coating so it adheres to the fish and sets as it bakes.
Suet
Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich flavour on the surface.

The step that matters

Covering the fish once golden brown. Browning happens quickly on the surface while the thick interior is still cooking. Covering with paper slows surface colour so the fish cooks through without scorching.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, butter, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, egg. 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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