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Baked Pike

A baked pike stuffed with suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and sauces, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Soak the cleaned pike in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the beef suet, bread crumbs, anchovy sauce, herbs, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg, lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, beaten egg, and cream until well combined.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the pike.

Bake

  1. Place the stuffed pike in a baking dish and add the gravy, Marsala, anchovy sauce, soy sauce, mushroom ketchup, strained lemon juice, and chopped shallots.

  2. Melt the butter and baste the fish frequently.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the sauce into a saucepan, stir in the baked flour, and boil for 3 minutes.

  2. Add the chopped parsley to the sauce.

  3. Serve the pike on a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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, which is baked whole and stuffed.
Beef suet
Adds fat and moisture to the stuffing so it stays rich and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the stuffing into a soft, cohesive mass.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when the fish is baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns gently while basting the fish.
Baked flour
Thickens the strained sauce so it coats the fish.

The step that matters

Basting the fish frequently. Basting keeps the surface moist and carries butter and cooking liquid over the fish, helping it stay tender rather than drying out during the long bake.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, anchovy, sauce, pepper, lemon, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, anchovy, sauce, pepper, lemon, parsley. 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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