Scottish Pike Recipe – Baked stuffed pike

Here’s a fantastic recipe for baked stuffed pike. In our experience the cooking times work best with a fish of about 3-5lbs.

1.  Clean and descale the fish, then remove the backbone but leave on the head and tail

2.  Cook about one cup of wild rice, then set it to one side to cool down

3.  Dice one large onion, 2 garlic cloves and one medium sized skinned cucumber

4.  Salt the chopped cucumber and leave for about 15-20 minutes.

5.  Fry off the onion, garlic and cucumber in a couple of knobs of butter – cook until translucent rather than brown

6.  Roughly chop up 2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs, some capers, some olives, curly parsley, chives and fresh thyme

7.  Mix  the rice, fried onion mix and chopped ingredients, then add a couple of spoonful’s of crème fraiche and season with salt and plenty of pepper

8.  Stuff the cavity of the cleaned pike with the savoury stuffing mix and stitch or tie the fish closed

9.  Place the stuffed fish onto a lightly buttered baking dish and put into a preheated oven at 200ºC

10. After 5 minutes, turn the fish and put it back into the oven for another 5 minutes

11. Add half a cup of water and half a cup of white wine and turn the oven down to 175ºC

12. Cook for about 30 to 40 minutes, until the fish is firm, but not hard, to the touch

 

Ingredients:

• 3 qt Boiling salted water
• 2/3 c Rice
• 1 lg Cucumber, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 2 Hard-cooked eggs, coarsely chopped
• 2 tb Butter
• 1/2 c Onions, finely chopped
• 1/2 c Parsley, finely chopped
• 1/4 c Chives, finely chopped
• 1 tb Salt
• 1/8 tsp. White pepper
• 1 tb Heavy cream (to 3 tb)
• 8 tb Butter (a 1/4-lb stick)
• 6 tb Dry bread crumbs
• 3 lb Pike — cleaned and scaled *
• 1/2 c Boiling water