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To Fry Sturgeon

A fried sturgeon dish prepared by boiling, slicing, coating in egg and bread, then frying in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Fry Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the sturgeon until cooked, then let it cool.

  2. Cut the fish into slices ½ inch thick.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the eggs and season with salt, pepper, and minced parsley.

  2. Dip the fish slices in the seasoned eggs, then coat with grated bread.

  3. Fry the coated fish in deep lard until rich brown using a frying basket.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sturgeon + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the seasoning and the bread coating to the fish so the crust holds together.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried in hot fat.
Deep lard for frying
Conducts heat to cook the fish quickly and browns the coating.

The step that matters

Frying the coated fish until rich brown. Fat that is too cool lets the coating soak up oil and fall apart, while fat that is too hot browns the crust before the fish heats through. Frying at a steady temperature gives a crisp, evenly coloured crust.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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