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Pike, Boiled
Wash, scale, and empty the pike, soak it for half an hour in vinegar and water, and skewer it with its tail in its mouth. Put it into a fish-kettle with as much very hot stock or water as will cover it, and add a table-spoonful of salt, a sliced onion, a bunch of parsley, and half a cupful of vinegar. Bring it to a boil, skim carefully, and simmer it gently until done enough. The time required for boiling will, of course, depend upon the size of the fish. Lift it out carefully, serve on a folded napkin, and send either Dutch, piquant, or caper sauce to table in a tureen. Time to boil a moderate-sized pike, half an hour. Sufficient for five or six persons. Probable cost, uncertain.
A plain court-bouillon poach, written when pike was a common river fish and cooks owned a long kettle with a lifting trivet. The main correction is time: half an hour will reduce most pike to cotton wool.
- Cooking timeModern practice is roughly 8-10 minutes per inch of thickness at a bare simmer, or until the flesh reaches 145F at the thickest point behind the head. A 3 lb pike is usually done in 15-20 minutes, not thirty.
- Never let it boilBring the liquid up, skim, then hold it at a shiver where a few bubbles break at the edge. A rolling boil splits the skin and pulls the delicate flakes apart, which is why the original insists on "simmer it gently."
- No fish kettleA roasting pan across two burners works, or curl the fish in a wide Dutch oven. Lay it on a sling of doubled cheesecloth or parchment so you can lift it out whole; pike breaks up easily once cooked.
- The vinegar soakHalf an hour in vinegar and water firms the flesh and cuts the slime that coats a freshly caught pike. With a fish from a counter it is optional, though the vinegar in the poaching liquid still helps set the skin and keeps the flesh white.
- Tail in the mouthSkewering the tail through the jaw curls the fish into a ring so it fits the kettle and holds a shape on the platter. Use a metal skewer or trussing needle and butcher's twine; it is purely presentation and can be skipped.
- BonesPike carries a row of forked Y-bones along the upper fillet that no amount of poaching softens. Warn the table, or fillet and pin-bone before serving and dress the fillets in the sauce.
- The sauces"Dutch sauce" in Victorian cookery is a hollandaise-type egg-and-butter sauce, "piquant" a brown sauce sharpened with vinegar, shallots and gherkins. Caper sauce here means a butter or white sauce with capers.
- Napkin and yieldThe folded napkin absorbs the poaching liquid that would otherwise pool and dilute the sauce; a warmed platter with a clean linen cloth does the same. The recipe gives five or six portions but never states a weight, only "a moderate-sized pike".
- Discard the roePike roe is widely reported to act as a purgative and is generally avoided; empty the fish thoroughly and do not save it as you would shad or cod roe.
Pike was for centuries a prestige freshwater fish in Britain and northern Europe, farmed in monastic stew ponds and served on fast days when sea fish could not reach inland tables. Its reputation was mixed: Izaak Walton praised it in The Compleat Angler, while French cookery treated the brochet as a fish needing help, usually a rich butter or egg sauce, which is exactly what Cassell's offers in its choice of Dutch, piquant or caper. The closing note, "probable cost, uncertain", suggests pike came less reliably through the fishmonger than the cod and herring priced elsewhere in the dictionary.