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Pike, Baked
Take a fresh pike weighing not less than four, nor more than eight, pounds. Wash it thoroughly, and scale it. The best way to do this is to pour boiling water over it until the scales look dull, then plunge it at once in cold water, and immediately remove the scales with the back of a knife. Wipe the fish dry in every part, fill it with a good veal stuffing, or oyster stuffing, or with forcemeat (see PIKE, STUFFING FOR). Truss it in a circle by tying the head and tail together, passing the tail between the jaws. Put it into a shallow circular dish, lay half a pound of butter broken into small pieces here and there upon it, and put with it a pint of broth or water, or flour and water, a minced shallot, and a little chopped parsley. Put it into a moderate oven, and bake until done enough. Baste frequently with the gravy, and be careful that the pike is gently cooked, or it will be dry and unpalatable. When it is done, lift the fish out very carefully, and put it on a hot dish; then strain the gravy, thicken it with two ounces of butter mixed with two ounces of flour, add a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, or a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, a little salt and cayenne, a glass of sherry, and two or three chopped gherkins. Boil the sauce for ten minutes, pour part of it over the pike, and send the rest to table in a tureen. If preferred, the pike may be baked without being stuffed. Less time will then be required to cook it. Time to bake a moderate-sized fish, thirty to forty minutes; for a large fish allow one hour to one hour and a quarter. Sufficient for eight or nine persons. Probable cost, uncertain. It is, of course, impossible to give the exact time required for baking and roasting pike, as it varies with the size of the fish. It may be known, however, that when the flesh leaves the bone easily in the thickest part it is done enough. As pike is naturally a very dry fish, it is important that it should be taken out of the oven as soon as, though not before, it is done.
A large stuffed freshwater fish baked slowly in butter and broth, with a rich thickened sauce made from the pan liquid. The whole point of the method is moisture: pike is lean and dries out faster than almost any other fish.
- The hinge: stop cooking the moment it flakesThe book says it plainly and it is the only rule that matters here. Pull the fish when the flesh parts from the backbone at the thickest point. Five minutes past that and no amount of sauce will save it.
- "A moderate oven"350F. Because the fish sits in a pint of liquid and is basted, a slightly lower 325F is safer for a big one, giving the stuffing time to heat through without the outer flesh tightening.
- TimingsThirty to forty minutes for a moderate-sized fish, an hour to an hour and a quarter for a large one; the book's weight range is four to eight pounds. Unstuffed, the book says only that less time will be needed. Check early and check by feel, not by clock.
- Sourcing a pikeRarely sold commercially in Britain or the US; it is largely an angler's fish, so expect to be given one whole or to substitute. Walleye, zander or a large whole trout behave similarly, though trout is fattier and more forgiving. Pike carries a row of fine Y-shaped intervening bones, which is one reason a whole cooked fish is often picked off the bone at table rather than filleted first.
- Scaling with boiling waterThis works, and it also loosens the heavy slime coat pike carries. Do not let the fish sit in the hot water: a few seconds until the scales dull, then straight into cold, or the surface flesh cooks and tears as you scrape.
- Trussing in a circleTail through the jaws and tied is largely presentation, but it also fits a long fish into a round dish and helps hold the stuffing in. A modern oval roasting tin and a couple of loops of kitchen string do the job; skip the jaw if it unsettles the table.
- Vanished flavouringsMushroom ketchup is a thin, dark, savoury mushroom-and-spice sauce, still made by a few firms; a splash of Worcestershire plus soy is the nearest common substitute. Essence of anchovy is anchovy extract, so about a teaspoon of anchovy paste. Both are there to push a bland fish towards savoury.
- The sauceTwo ounces butter to two ounces flour is a full 1:1 roux stirred into roughly a pint of strained pan liquid, which will give a thick, coating sauce. Boiling it ten minutes cooks out the raw flour, which is the intent; add the sherry with time left to boil off its harshness.
- Butter and yieldHalf a pound of butter on the fish is generous even by Victorian standards. Four to six ounces is ample for basting. As written the dish serves eight or nine, which assumes it is one course among several.
Cassell's places pike among the freshwater fish that mattered far more to British cooks in the nineteenth century than they do now, when a river or a stocked pond was a household's fish supply and a large pike was a prize worth dressing up. The species has a long culinary pedigree in Europe, prized in medieval and early modern kitchens as a fast-day fish and standard on grand tables, but it has always had two problems: a maze of fine bones and flesh so lean it turns to cotton if overcooked. Both explain everything in this recipe. Stuffing it with veal forcemeat or oysters adds fat and moisture from inside, half a pound of butter and a pint of broth do the same from outside, and the heavily seasoned sauce, thick with roux and sharpened with anchovy, ketchup, sherry and gherkin, supplies the savour the fish itself lacks. Serving it trussed in a ring, tail in mouth, is an old presentation for long fish, and in practice a simple solution to fitting a large pike onto a dish.