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Scolloped Sturgeon

Cold boiled sturgeon mixed with mayonnaise, celery, cayenne pepper, and sea salt, served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Scolloped Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Once the sturgeon is cold, pick it into pieces and wash thoroughly.

  2. Squeeze out any excess water from the sturgeon.

Dress and serve

  1. Prepare a mayonnaise dressing and mix in chopped celery, cayenne pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Serve the sturgeon on white lettuce leaves.

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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sturgeon + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

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

  5. Sturgeon + celerytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 dish, giving it its flaky, meaty texture.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the fish and keeping it creamy.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly vegetal flavour against the rich fish.

The step that matters

Squeeze out any excess water from the sturgeon. Excess water dilutes the mayonnaise dressing and makes it runny and loose. Removing it first keeps the dressing thick and helps it cling to the fish.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, celery, pepper. 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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