Fillets Of Pike A La Marechale

Take the pike and skin it as above. Cut the fillets in the shape of cutlets, and powder a little salt and pepper over them. Beat the yolks of two eggs in a pan, with which brush the fillets over, and then strew crumbs of bread over them. Next dip them into clarified butter, and into crumbs of bread, to give them a second coat. Make those crumbs quite level. Lastly, broil the fillets over a slow, but equal fire. Dish them en miroton, and send them up with a white poivrade. Put into a small stew-pan two spoonfuls of Tarragon vinegar, let it reduce to half, and add to it three spoonfuls of sauce tournee; thicken it with the yolk of an egg, add to it half a quartern of fresh butter, some salt, pepper, and the juice of half a lemon; work the sauce to make it smooth.

Fillets Of Pike A La Turque

Prepare the fillets as in No. 6. Wash some rice quite clean, and blanch it. Make it swell soft in some good consomme. Let it be done thoroughly, keep it thick, and season it well. Add a few spoonfuls of veloute, and a little thick cream, still preserving it thick and firm, that it may be dished in a pyramid or dome, in the centre of the dish, and the fillets all round. Mask* the fillets, but not the rice. You may serve up either with the maitre d' hotel, or the ravigotte. (See Sauces.)

Pike A La Chambord. Exactly The Same Thing As Carp, No. 4

Pike With Genevoise Sauce

After having merely emptied and washed the pike, without scaling it, mark a marinade with carrots, onions, parsley roots, thyme, bay-leaves, sweet basil, cloves, and a few stalks of parsley. Stew all these in a little butter over a slow fire. When the roots are become tender, moisten them with Madeira wine, and let the marinade stew on. When it is done enough, strain it through a sieve over the pike, which you have taken care to lay in the narrowest vessel you can procure, so as to use no more wine than is requisite for the sauce. Mind not to put much salt, as the moistening is used for the sauce. When the pike is done, drain it immediately, that you may scrape off all the scales on both sides. Then put it back into the vessel where it was boiled, and pour in a little of the liquor to keep it warm, and to prevent its getting dry. Make a roux, but not too high in colour, which en maigre you must moisten with wine alone; but en gras you add two good spoonfuls of gravy of veal, with some parings of mushrooms, and a bunch of parsley and green onions. Let these stew till the sauce no longer smells of flour. Then strain it through a tammy, and add a good lump of butter kneaded with flour, a spoonful of essence of anchovies, and the juice of a lemon.

N. B. - You must use white wine in preference to red; it will then differ, besides, from a matelotte.

Pike With Dutch Sauce

Scale the pike and take off the gills, without opening the belly. You must empty it at the head. Make a farce with two handfuls of crumbs of bread, and the same quantity of beef-suet (en maigre you use butter instead of suet), the yolks of two eggs, or two whole eggs, a little milk, a large quantity of chopped parsley, a little thyme, salt, and pepper, and shalots chopped very fine, if approved of. Mix this very fine, and put the whole into the belly of the pike. Then trim a plafond or baking-dish, with layers of bacon, that the pike may not burn and stick to it. Fasten the fish's tail in its mouth with a little skewer. Break a few eggs into an earthen-pan, with a little pepper and salt.

Brush the pike all over with the beaten eggs, and powder it over with crumbs of bread; then baste it all over with clarified butter, and powder it with crumbs of bread again : baste it afresh with butter, and then bake it in the oven, till it is of a fine colour. Send it up to table over a cloth, and serve up separately the Dutch sauce. If you send up two pikes, let one be green, and the other yellow. The green one is made by mixing a large quantity of chopped parsley with the crumbs of bread, before you powder the fish over with them.

Baked Pike, French Way

Prepare the pike as above, but instead of stuffing it with the aforesaid farce, stuff it with a farce a quenelles. Mind you bind the head, which is liable to break. Make a marinade*, a small quantity will do, as it is improper that pike should be drenched with it; indeed there will be quite enough if it reaches the middle of the fish. Baste it frequently with some of the moistening, that it may take a fine colour, which is not easily obtained, as you have not used crumbs of bread. When it is done, drain it. Take some of the marinade to mark a butter sauce in this way; put a good lump of butter and a spoonful of flour into a stew-pan; moisten with the seasoning, but do not allow the sauce to boil. Add to this a spoonful of essence of anchovies and the juice of a lemon. Serve the sauce under the fish without masking †. If the pike is not of a fine colour, you should add some fine capers to the sauce; and in that case, mask the fish over with it.

* See Marinade.

† Masking, or covering with the sauce.