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Fresh Sturgeon Steak Marinade

A sturgeon steak marinated in vinegar and butter, breaded, fried, and served with an egg and mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fresh Sturgeon Steak Marinade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the sturgeon slice in hot water for 5 minutes, then drain.

  2. In a bowl, combine vinegar, melted butter, salt, black pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Add the sturgeon to the marinade and let it sit for 6 hours, turning occasionally.

  4. Drain the sturgeon and dry it on a napkin.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the sturgeon in beaten egg, then roll it in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the sturgeon in very hot fat until cooked through.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 2 raw eggs with French mustard.

  2. Gradually add half of the marinade to the egg mixture to create a smooth sauce.

  3. Serve the sauce with the fried sturgeon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Firm, thick fish that holds its shape through soaking, marinating and frying.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating to the fish and, as yolks, emulsify the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried in hot fat.
Vinegar
Acidity that tenderizes the fish surface and sharpens the flavor of the marinade.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the marinade, carrying flavor into the fish.
French mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the egg yolks into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add half of the marinade to the egg mixture. Adding the acidic liquid slowly while whisking lets the egg yolks emulsify it into a smooth sauce. Pouring it in all at once can cause the sauce to split or curdle.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, vinegar, butter, pepper, lemon, 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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