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To Make Sturgeon Cutlets

Sturgeon cutlets fried and served in a gravy of catsup, wine, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Make Sturgeon Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the tail piece of sturgeon and cut off the gristle.

  2. Slice the sturgeon into pieces about ½ inch thick.

  3. Sprinkle the slices with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Dredge the slices with flour and fry in oil until light brown.

Make the gravy

  1. Prepare 1 pint of gravy, seasoned with catsup, wine, and pounded cloves, thickened with brown flour and butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Once the cutlets are cold, add them to the gravy and stew for a few minutes.

  2. Garnish the dish with forcemeat balls and crispy fried parsley.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Forms the main body of the cutlets, providing the firm, meaty flesh the dish is built on.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in the hot oil and form a crisp outer crust.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty depth of colour and flavour.
Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to season the gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the floured slices until light brown. Flour browns through the Maillard reaction in hot oil, creating crust and flavour. Frying too briefly leaves the coating pale and doughy, while frying too long dries the fish.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, pepper, flour, wine, butter, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, pepper, flour, wine, butter, parsley. 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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