Ingredients:
1 whole ungutted pike of about 1,5 kg
1 middle-size onion
3 slices of white toast bread without crust
70 g of melted butter
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
10 peas of black pepper
Big wide saucepan (pot)
Wash and scale the pike. Do not gut it. Cut off the head. Detach skin from flesh for couple of centimeters along the edge and wrap it up toward the tail.
Continue carefully pulling the skin toward the tail, detaching the flesh with a knife if necessary. Having reached the tail, break the backbone. You have received a “stocking” for stuffing. It is recommended not to break it.
So, you have got the “stocking” and the trunk. Take off as much flesh from the trunk as possible. Put it into blender, add some onion, crumbled bread, salt, ground pepper and melted butter. Reduce the mass into fine particles, the bones should be finely ground as well. If you do not trust your blender, put stuffing through a meat grinder with a fine screen.
Stuff the skin thouroughly. Try not to overstuff it, otherwise the skin may break during boiling.
Bring salted water with a bay leaf and pea pepper to boiling in a wide pot. Put the pike (if you are going to serve it with the head, then put it in the pot too having removed gills first). Boil at minimal fire for about 40 minutes.
If you do not like boiling or your pot is not wide enough, then cook it in the oven. Preheat it to 160oC. Place the fish on a piece of foil or parchment, add some thin slices of lemon and several springs of greenery (parsley or basil). Wrap it so that the edges were tightly closed. Place it on a baking tray and put in the oven for about an hour.
Cool cooked fish, slice it and serve.
It is yummy!
