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wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

This is an old recipe that was used by travellers in the UK. The concept is that a whole meal could be cooked in just one pot, for obvious reasons. This is the best way to cook Pike in my opinion and the pike could be substituted with rabbit, hare etc.

The Pike should weigh between 4 and 8 Lbs. Smaller than this they are two boney.

Method:-

Scrape off the scales with the back of a large knife. This is best done with the grain so to speak.

Gut the fish but leave the head on.

Take the two fillets by holding the head firm and with a sharp knife cut down just behind the gills. When you hit the backbone turn the knife on it side and cut to the tail.

Remove all the bones that you can from the fillet. No need to be too fussy.

Place the fillets in a pan with enough water to cover them, and boil for five mins. Then drain the water.

Now make your suit pastry mix. Like you would for steak and kidney pudding.

Line a pudding bowl with the pastry. Grease the bowl first off course or use the cloth.

Break up the fillets with your fingers and season.

Put the meat into the bowl <not the bones> randomly mixed with onion,herbs, sliced potatoes, whatever you fancy. and add more seasoning and a knob of butter.

Add a small ammout of water. This will depend on the size of your bowl but not quite enough to cover the ingredients.

Place the pastry lid on the top and cover with foil, or tie the cloth up with string.

Place the bowl in a pan of water and boil. The boiling time depends on the size of pudding of course and how small the root vedge have been cut up. The bowl that we use which gives four generous portion we boil for about 1 to 1 1\2 hours.

This is a great simple dish.

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squirrel01 · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 90 Location: co. roscommon

as a pike fisherman (for sport) i see how the pike stocks are being Decimated by the eastern europeans, the way its going there isnt going to any pike left, shouldnt we all be promoting the catch and release system.....

blowin · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:25 am Post subject:

Just to mention that although you don't need a licence to take pike there are some regulations around their removal . The following is an extract from the Central Fisheries site :
http://www.cfb.ie/fishing_in_ireland/pike/pconserve.htm

* CONSERVATION OF PIKE BYE-LAW NO. 809, 2006
The pike bye law provides for the following conservation measures:

• a bag limit of 1 Pike in any one day,
• prohibits the killing of any pike geater than 50 cm in length,
• prohibits the possession by any person of more than 1 whole pike less than 50 cm or more than 0.75 kgs of pike flesh, this provision does not apply to a person storing pike or pike parts subject to conditions,
• prohibits the possession by any person of more than 12 coarse fish for use as bait subject to conditions.

I have just noticed that this bye-law was implemented in 2006 . I am sure you could be in possession of up to 6 Lb in weight before that so Wayland's recipe could legitimately have suited one day's catch .
I wonder where new regs like this are publicised . I wasn't aware of it until just now ( hence my editing of this post ).

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

David · Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 180 Location: Co. Clare

Hi Wayland, thanks for the recipe. Any advice on how to get the muddy taste out of the fish? The lakes round here are full of pike, but they can be a bit on the muddy side.

Could I stick the live fish in a large tank for a few days, with several changes of water? Possibly build a "holding pen" in the river?

David

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

Hi David. I was reading a book called "The Longshorman". <I cant remember the name of the bloke who wrote it>. He was a biologist who worked all his life for the UK fisheries board. He stated that the muddy taste of some freshwater fish is caused directly by a harmless bacteria that lives on the muddy bottoms of slow/still waters. The inferance being that water with spate scrubbs it own bottom Confused

So to speak. This is the reason for some trout tasting muddy etc. I have found that still water Pike takes on the muddy flavour and soak my fillets over night in a weekish solution of salt water. As far as keeping the fish alive in running water I have never tried it. Hugh did of course with his grass carp and said that it did work. As it is the whole flesh that is effected I would not like to guess how long it would take though. Try it and let us know. It would be good if you were to have two fish and eat one strait away, and cleaned the other one for comparison. Good luck.
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David · Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 180 Location: Co. Clare

Thanks for the advice and information!...soaking in salt water sounds like a plan.

Speaking as a completely amateurish fisherman, the pike round here seem to stick themselves on your hook...we just row along slowly and tow a plug, catching them it couldn't be easier. Most of the time we chuck them back as they seem too big to eat, but we have experimented with smallish Jack pike. The flesh is pretty nice, if you could just solve the muddiness.

Do you have any recipes for other freshwater species, like Perch? I've heard that perch can be fantastic.

D

blowin · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 11:04 am Post subject:

I think it is generally agreed that the smaller fish make better eating -- somewhere around the 3 to 4 lb mark being ideal ( if you need that much ) .
( Pike are cannibals so the big boys will eat the jacks themselves if they get there first ) .
Has the water you fish been managed or artificially overstocked or are you just a very lucky novice ? Pike aren't the most difficult thing to catch but aren't normally quite that easy either !
There is a loch not far from here which is reputedly stuffed with them around about now . They are netted out of an adjacent loch at spawning time , when they are in shallow water , to protect the trout stocks . Whereas the pike would once have just been chucked onto the bank they are now all relocated to this smaller water as a conservation measure but if the story is true that will just create an imbalance at the new location so removing a few should actually be a good thing .
I can't remember the name of the place . It is about 20 miles West of Tubbercurry . I will look it up if anyone is interested .
I can't remember where I put my rods either . This is getting serious ! I think I will have to leave the rushes to do their own thing and just b*gger off for a bit of R&R sometime before I really loose my sense of humour .

David · Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 180 Location: Co. Clare

I think more than anything, the lakes near us (there are several big lakes) are pretty inaccessible from the bank, and are under-fished...I suspect they are naturally full of pike. There are also lots of small bream and perch. We even caught a small brown trout once (on a worm, pure accident). We're lucky to have a boat, and I took the advice of a local expert regarding best time to fish for pike and it seems to work. If you're ever near sixmilebridge...

Incidentally, the best lure we have is a little 5" mini-pike...so I can see your point about Pike cannibalism! I'm not an absolute novice... i used to do a bit of fishing as a kid, and I love fishing...but we have very basic equipment and a very basic repertoire of techniques...would love to get more into fishing ...then again, it's finding time, between pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, veggies and earning some money to pay the mortgage!

D