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To Fry Sturgeon

Sturgeon fillets are coated in egg and bread crumbs and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Fry Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop parsley finely.

  2. Mix the chopped parsley with beaten eggs, seasoning with coarse sea salt.

  3. Dip sturgeon fillets in the egg mixture.

  4. Coat the fillets with grated bread.

Fry

  1. Heat deep lard in a frying basket until hot.

  2. Fry the coated sturgeon until it is a rich brown color.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sturgeon + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together94 recipes

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

  4. Sturgeon + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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

Sturgeon fillets
The main protein, which is cooked through while the coating crisps around it.
2 eggs
Bind the parsley and seasoning, and help the grated bread stick to the fish.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, browned coating that protects the fish during frying.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour and aroma to the egg coating.

The step that matters

Frying the coated sturgeon. The lard must be hot before the fish goes in. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly, so it browns and crisps rather than absorbing grease and turning soggy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, egg, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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