Pike-perch baked with potatoes under sour cream

Here the potatoes aren't a side dish — they're part of the cooking method. Pike-perch is lean, and on a bare tray it dries out from below before it's cooked through on top; a layer of potatoes separates the fish from the hot metal and feeds it moisture for the whole hour.

The exchange runs both ways. The potatoes underneath take on the fish juice and sour cream that run off the fish, and that's exactly why they're cut into thin rounds: thick slices won't cook through in fifty minutes, while by then the fish would already be overdone.

The sour cream on top isn't a sauce — it's a covering. It dries into a crust and shields the fish from dry heat; without it, the exposed back of the pike-perch would turn stringy in the same time. So it's spread generously over the whole fish, not just a stripe down the middle.

Potatoes underneath keep this bake moist by soaking up the juices; the carrot-and-onion version baked in pieces does the same job with vegetables instead of starch. For less prep and more sauce, pike-perch baked in sour cream with onions skips the potato layer.

Caloric content: 130kcal

Notes

• Remove the heads and tails. They won't fit evenly into the dish with the rest and will lift the fish above the potatoes — the juice will run past them.
• Salt the potatoes separately. Salt from the fish won't reach them: the sour cream sits on top, and the juice that drips down is salted only unevenly.
• Lay the rounds overlapping, in one solid layer. A gap is a spot where the fish will sit right on the dish and scorch.
• The sour cream needs to be thick. A runny one will drip off the fish onto the potatoes in the first minutes, leaving nothing to cover the fish.
• Don't cover the dish. Under foil you'd get a different dish: the potatoes would steam and the sour cream wouldn't form a crust.
• Check doneness by the potatoes, not the fish. The pike-perch will be ready earlier; a knife should slide into a round with no resistance.

Questions and answers

How long to bake pike-perch with potatoes?

45–50 minutes at 180 °C. Time is counted by the potatoes: the fish will be ready sooner, but the thin rounds need to turn soft all the way through.

Can the potatoes go on top?

That would defeat the point of the recipe. Underneath, they hold the fish above the hot metal and collect the juice; on top they'd just dry out, and the pike-perch would dry out beneath them.

What can replace sour cream?

Thick plain yogurt or mayonnaise, if it's homemade. What matters is that the covering is thick and doesn't drip off the fish in the first minutes.

Which potatoes should you use?

Any except very mealy ones, which will fall apart into mush under the fish juice. What matters isn't the variety but the thickness of the rounds — thin ones will cook through in the same time as the fish.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.