Stuffed Pike Recipe – Baked or Poached, Step by Step

Name: Stuffed Pike Recipe – Baked or Poached, Step by Step
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 4
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Pike 1-1.2 kg; Onions 2; Stale white loaf 2-3 slices; Vegetable oil 3-4 tbsp; Milk (optional) 1 cup; Salt, black pepper, coriander, cloves, allspice to taste; Parsley, lettuce, lemon, pomegranate, olives, pickled gherkins, cherry tomatoes, etc. for serving

The tastiest pike dish cooked anywhere in the world is stuffed pike. There are countless methods and recipes, and they differ from one another quite radically. People often say that a properly stuffed pike can only be made the way Jewish cooks make it. And, not surprisingly, there is no single recipe.

Those who claim that pike is a tasteless fish that smells of mud have apparently only ever seen one in a wildlife programme on TV and simply don't know how to cook it. Pike flesh is firm and lean – you sometimes hear it called “protein” meat. Fried pike or pike in sour cream, when cooked with care, can outshine even fried carp and zander, despite the flesh being a little dry.

So, about the Jewish roots of stuffed pike. Of all the recipes I have seen called “Jewish-style stuffed fish”, or געפֿילטע פֿיש – gefilte fish, nearly every one begins with the words “you need a carp of a couple of kilos”, while pike is hardly ever mentioned. As far as I understand, pike is not found in the Middle East, whereas carp is farmed there in abundance. The cuisine of any people is built, first of all, on the foods that the nature of its land provides.

Pike lives in many regions. Its main range, or habitat as they say, is the freshwater lakes and rivers of Europe, Asia and America. Pike is a prized catch for millions of anglers and an excellent ingredient for the kitchen. Pike fish cakes in tomato sauce or stuffed pike are much-loved homemade fish dishes.

As a rule, stuffed fish is made from the cleaned skin of the fish filled with a mince of its flesh mixed with onion, sometimes eggs, and soaked white bread. The fish is poached in a stock made from its bones and vegetables and served cut into slices.

Stuffed pike is a main course for dinner, and even for a festive dinner. As with pike fish cakes, a large fish with plenty of flesh and bigger, easier-to-spot bones is best for this dish. Lately pike is more and more often stuffed in ways that depart from the old recipes. The prepared fish is baked rather than poached, which is very tasty. Sometimes “stuffed pike” means baked or poached patties of the mince wrapped in parchment – a stand-in for sliced stuffed fish. It is not unusual to find the dish made with mushrooms, fried vegetables and even pork cracklings.

Ingredients

4 servings

Pike 1-1.2 kg
Onions 2
Stale white loaf 2-3 slices
Vegetable oil 3-4 tbsp
Milk (optional) 1 cup
Salt, black pepper, coriander, cloves, allspice to taste
Parsley, lettuce, lemon, pomegranate, olives, pickled gherkins, cherry tomatoes, etc. for serving

Step-by-step recipe

For a small family, a modest fish is enough – one kilogram or a little more. First, it is quite a challenge to find a serving dish that a whole stuffed pike will fit on. Second, a larger fish is hard to poach or bake in the oven. A pike weighing 1.2-1.5 kg is usually about half a metre long, and it is perfectly possible to cook it whole.
Scale the pike and, with a sharp knife, cut off the head right behind the gill covers. Remove the gills and pull out the innards without cutting the belly open. Do not slit the belly under any circumstances – the skin has to stay intact, so that the filling doesn't fall out through any tears when you stuff the fish. Leave the fins in place as well.
Using a sharp knife and kitchen scissors, take the skin off the fish in one piece, like a stocking. Carefully cutting the flesh away under the skin all the way round, pull the skin down to the tail fin. Cut through the backbone as close to the tail fin as you can. Cut all the flesh off the bones and the skin. The skin is thick and strong, and the flesh scrapes off easily. But it is important not to damage the skin. You should end up with a stocking with fins and a plate of pike flesh.
Peel a few onions and chop them fairly coarsely. Fry the onion in vegetable oil until nicely golden. Soak the stale white bread or loaf in milk. If for some reason milk doesn't suit you, replace it with boiled water.
Put the pike flesh through the mincer twice. An important point: after the first pass, take out the mincer blade and remove the small bones that have collected there. All the larger bones gather in front of the mincer plate – a remarkable feature of this kitchen tool, by the way. After the second pass, mince the soaked and well-squeezed white bread.
In a bowl, combine the minced pike, the minced white bread and all the fried onion. You can also add a finely grated raw onion if you like. Season the mince with salt and pepper to taste. I recommend adding, if you wish, 1-2 pinches of ground coriander, plus one clove and one allspice berry ground to a powder. Add 2 tbsp of cold boiled water. Mix the filling and knead it very thoroughly until completely smooth.
Stuff the pike skin with the filling, giving it the shape of a fish. Wet your hands with cold water so the filling doesn't stick to them. Don't pack it too tightly, or the skin may burst during poaching or baking. It makes sense to prick the skin with a toothpick in several places. Fill the pike's head with the remaining mince. The pike is now ready for cooking. If you are not sure the pike will stay whole and undamaged, tie the fish with thick cotton thread – this lowers the risk of the fish splitting and makes it easier to turn and move.
There are two ways to cook stuffed pike.
Option one: poaching the pike in a stock of bones and vegetables. It is not difficult. Put all the pike bones – the ribs and the backbone – into a large fish kettle. Scatter in a handful of washed onion skins, and a raw carrot and beetroot cut into pieces. Add a bay leaf and dried soup roots – 1-2 tbsp. Lay the stuffed fish and the head on top. Drop in a few black peppercorns and allspice berries, some cloves, and add 0.5 tsp of salt. Cover the fish with cold water – not hot, or the skin will burst instantly. Set the pan on the heat and slowly (!) bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook for 45 mins on a very low flame, so the liquid barely simmers. When the pike is done, carefully pour off the liquid.
Option two. Grease a baking tray of a suitable size with vegetable oil, or line it with baking paper, and lay the pike on it. Brush the whole fish thoroughly with fat – vegetable oil or butter. Put the fish in the oven and switch it on. The fish should heat up together with the oven. Bring the oven to 180°C. Bake the stuffed fish for about 1 hour. Counting the time the fish needs to warm up, that will be enough. From time to time, baste the surface of the fish with fat or with the juices that run onto the tray. Also keep an eye on the pike so its surface doesn't burn – the fish can be turned over.
Line a serving dish long enough for the fish with a few green lettuce leaves (lettuce, romaine, endive). Lift the fish out of the pan or off the tray and transfer it to the dish, trying not to damage it. If the pike was tied with thread before cooking, this will be easy. Cut the thread off only once the fish is on the dish. Place the head next to the fish on the dish to make it look like a whole fish. Ideally, you will manage to recreate the look of a real pike.
Stuffed pike can be cut into portions before serving. But you can also do that right at the festive table. Decorate the dish with lemon slices, pickled gherkins and cherry tomatoes, olives, parsley – use your imagination. It looks very pretty when the stuffed pike is decorated with thin lines of mayonnaise in a lattice pattern, just a very little of it.
Stuffed pike is served chilled, although it is just as good hot. If the pike was poached, you can add the boiled vegetables, spoon 2-3 tbsp of the poaching liquid over it, and put the dish in the fridge to cool. Thanks to the substances from the bones, the stock will set, and the pike will be in a clear jelly.
Although stuffed pike is served cold, nobody lets it cool down. It is more than we can bear – it gets eaten while still hot. Ideally, serve the fish with hot mustard or homemade horseradish – the best condiment for fish and meat.