To Bake Pike

Ingredients

• the fish
• a slight dredging of flour
• small bits of butter thickly over it

Method

1. 1

   Clean the pike, fill with forcemeat, sew up, dredge with flour, and cover with butter.

2. 2

   Bake for 30 to 45 minutes for moderate size, longer for larger fish.

3. 3

   Serve with melted butter or anchovy sauce.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 2 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Modern cookery, in all its branches (1884) by Eliza Acton, page 98. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

from half to three quarters of an hour, or more, should it be unusually fine. Dish the trout, skim the fat from the gravy, and pass it through a hot strainer over the fish, which should be served immediately. A little acid can be added to the sauce at pleasure, and a glass of wine when it is considered an improvement. This receipt is for one large or for two middling- sized fish. We can recommend it as a good one from our own expe- rience. Butter, 3 oz. ; flour, 1 tablespoonful ; seasoning of mace, cayenne, and nutmeg ; trout, 1 large, or 2 moderate-sized ; veal stock, f pint ; parsley, small faggot ; 1 bay-leaf ; roll of lemon-rind ; little salt : a to f hour. Obs. — Trout may be stewed in equal parts of strong veal gravy, and of red or white wine, without having been previously browned ; the sauce should then be thickened, and agreeably flavoured with lemon-juice, and the usual store-sauces, before it is poured over the fish. They are also good when wrapped in buttered paper, and baked or broiled : if very small, the better mode of cooking them is to fry them whole. They should never be plain boiled, as, though naturally a delicious fish, they are then very insipid. TO BOIL PIKE. In best season from September to February.! Take out the gills, empty and clean the fish very thoroughly, and soak it for half an hour with a cup of vinegar thrown into as much water as will cover it well, should there be any danger of its having a muddy taste.* Wipe the inside dry, and fill it ♦ Soaking fish is always better avoided when it can be so ; well washing the inside with strong vinegar would perhaps icmove the objectionable flavour with- out it. Trout CHAP. II.] FISH. 81 with oyster-forcemeat, or with common veal forcemeat made either with butter or with suet (for which see Chapter VIII.) ; curl the fish round, and fasten it with the tail in the mouth, lay it on a fish-plate, cover it well with cold water, throw in some salt as soon as it boils, skim it well, and boil the fish gently from half to a whole hour according to its size. Some persons prefer the scales taken off the pike when it is prepared for this mode of dressing ; and many cooks still put the fish into boiling water well salted and skimmed. Serve it with plain melted butter, or anchovy sauce. Moderate sized, £ hour ; large, 1 hour. Obs. — We must repeat that it is impossible to give for fish which varies so much in quality as well as in size, directions for the exact time which is required to cook it ; a few minutes, more or less, must often be allowed ; and it should always be watched attentively, and lifted from the water as soon as it is done. TO BAKE PIKE. ( Common Receipt.') Pour warm water over the outside of the fish, and wipe it very clean with a coarse cloth drawn from the head downwards, that the scales may not be disturbed ; then wash it well in cold water, empty, and cleanse the inside with the greatest nicety, fill it either with the com- mon forcemeat No. 1, or with No. 4 of Chapter VIII., sew it up, fasten the tail to the mouth, give it a slight dredging of flour, stick small bits of butter thickly over it

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.