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To Stew Sturgeon

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the sturgeon slices in butter until half cooked.

  2. Place the fried sturgeon in a stew pan with veal broth, onion, and sweet herbs.

  3. Allow to stew until the fish is perfectly tender.

  4. In the same butter used for frying, fry an onion until golden.

  5. Add the onion, fish gravy, and wine to a saucepan.

  6. Stir in flour or cream to thicken, then add ketchup.

  7. Bring to a boil, strain through a sieve, and pour over the fish.

  8. Garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + ketchuptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, veal, butter, wine, flour, cream, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, veal, butter, wine, flour, cream, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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