Pike from the oven on a bed of tomatoes

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 1 pike
• 500 g tomatoes, chunky, from the can
• 1 cup of cream
• 200 ml milk
• 50 g butter
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 2 onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 lemons
• 2 tbsp mustard
• 4 tbsp ketchup (curry spice)
• 1 tbsp sugar
• salt and pepper

Instructions

Working time approx. 40 minutes; Rest time approx. 2 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 3 hours 40 minutes

Scale and gut the pike, wash thoroughly, and pat dry. The ideal size, including head and tail, would be about 60 to 70 cm. Rub with the juice of one lemon and sprinkle with salt and pepper inside and out. Leave in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. Roughly chop the parsley, one onion, and one garlic clove, mix with the juice of the other lemon, and stuff the fish with it. In a large casserole dish or on a baking tray, scatter the butter in small pieces where the pike will lie. Mix the tomatoes with a finely chopped onion and a finely chopped garlic clove and carefully spread them over the pieces of butter. Now place the pike on its bed of tomatoes, belly down, making sure the stuffing doesn’t fall out. Mix the mustard with the spiced ketchup and sugar and brush thickly over the entire fish with a pastry brush. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (top and bottom heat) for 50-60 minutes. Divide the cream and milk mixture so that you can baste the pike every 10 minutes. After the cooking time, remove it from the oven and skim off as much liquid as possible. Carefully remove as much of the tomatoes from under the fish as possible and pass them through a sieve along with the skimmed liquid. Season this tomato broth into a sauce and serve it with the fish. Serve with boiled potatoes and a light cucumber salad.