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To Boil Pike

A boiled pike stuffed with forcemeat, served with butter, lemon, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Boil Pike

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cleaned pike in a mixture of ½ cup vinegar and enough water to cover it for 30 minutes to remove any muddy taste.

  2. Dry the inside of the fish and fill it with oyster forcemeat or veal forcemeat.

  3. Roll the fish up and secure it by fastening the tail in the mouth.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the fish in a pot and cover it with cold water.

  2. Add coarse sea salt as soon as the water boils, then skim the surface.

  3. Boil the fish gently for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on its size.

  4. Serve the fish with melted butter, lemon, and your choice of 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.

  1. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pike
Firm white flesh that holds its shape through gentle poaching and forms the dish's main body.
Vinegar
Its acidity helps draw out muddy flavours from the fish before cooking.
Forcemeat
Fills the cavity with a moist, seasoned stuffing that stays tender as the fish cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that complements the mild, lean flesh of the fish.

The step that matters

Boil the fish gently. Vigorous boiling breaks up the delicate flesh and can split the skin, so the water should only simmer. Cooking time depends on size, so a large fish needs the longer end of the range to cook through evenly.

“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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