Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Pike, Sauces for. — Plain melted butter, brown caper sauce, Dutch sauce, piquant sauce, or anchovy sauce may all be served with pike. Or, if preferred, a sauce may be used prepared as follows ; — Mix a small tea-spoonful of flour with as much water as will make it into a smooth paste. Stir this into six ounces of clarified butter. Add a quarter of a pint of milk or cream and a small anchovy which has been freed from skin and bone and chopped small. Stir the sauce over the fire until it is on the point of boiling, then add a table-spoonful of Indian soy, and a little salt and cayenne if necessary. Just before sending the sauce to table, stir into it a dessert-spoonful of strained lemon- juice. Time, five minutes to boil the sauce. Probable cost, lOd., if made with milk. Sufficient for five or six persons. Pike, Sea. — "It is an opinion," says Mr. Donovan, " amongst the fishermen, that the shoals of mackerel arrive on the shores of this country under escort of another kind of fish called the sea-pike, a most singular-looking creature. This is sometimes brought to market, and it is curious that its flavour very much. resembles that of the mackerel, but in my opinion it is superior. Its elongated, slender, and pointed head more resembles the long bill of a snipe than the head of a fish. When the fish measures twenty-one inches from snout to tail, the head and bill together measure six inches, and the bill three inches and a half in length. This bill or head is very slender, the upper jaw, as it may be called, being somewhat horny. Both jaws are thickly planted with minute teeth as sharp as needles. This biU or beak is supposed to be its weapon of protection to the mackerel, but is too soft to act as such. In its general appearance this fish is like an eel, but is not so round, its sides being somewhat flattened. The colour is a handsome bluish-grey on the back, with splendid silvery PIK (570) PIK sides. When the length, is twenty-one inches the greatest girth is four, and its weight five ounces and a half. Its eye is large for the size of the fish. A singular property of the backbone is that when boiled the colour becomes green." Pike, Seasoned (German recipe). — Scale and wash a moderate-sized pike, take out the gills, then pick the flesh off the bone, leaving it entire. Mince the flesh finely, and mix with it a little salt and cayenne, some grated nutmeg, and a chopped onion. Put it into a saucepan ■with a quarter of a pound of butter and a cupful of bread-crumbs, and stir the mixture over the fire until the fish is cooked without being browned. Bind it together with beaten egg. It should be rather stiff than otherwise. Lay the bone of the pike in a thickly-buttered baking-dish. Cover with the seasoned mince, and restore it as nearly as possible to its original shape. Brush over with beaten egg, strew grated bread-crumbs over it, and lay upon it here and there little pieces of butter. Cover the head and tail with buttered paper, to keep them from browning before the rest of the fish is done, and bake in a moderate oven. Send brown caper, piquante, or Dutch sauce to table with this dish. Time to bake, until the fish is lightly browned all over, say about half an hour. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for four or five persons.