Recipe for Esox Lucius - Chris This is for You

This one is for Chris at Grow Fish Eat Blogspot he enjoys fishing and has fond memories of fishing for Pike with his father, many years ago.  As a rule he doesn't hunt anything which he can't eat - so I thought I would share this recipe for cooking pike.


For eating purposes pike should be between three to seven pounds in weight.


To cook:  Clean, but do not scale.  Stuff with veal forcemeat, bake, basting well with salted butter to which a glass of claret has been added.  When the pike is done, to the sauce in the pan may be added more butter and the juice of two or three oranges, the whole being heated again and then being put into a sauceboat, the inside of which has been rubbed with a clove of garlic.

Borrowed image

The liver of the pike may be shredded very fine and incorporated with the stuffing, but the roe should be thrown away.


Pike are better after the first frosts when they have lost their small forked bones.


Eat and enjoy!


Taken from: The Wild Foods of Great Britain by L Cameron, originally published 1917, republished 1977.