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Stewed Stukgeon

A stew of boiled sturgeon mixed with butter, spices, and vinegar, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Stukgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sturgeon in water until tender to extract the oil.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter with red pepper, black pepper, mustard, salt, and vinegar.

  3. Pick the boiled sturgeon into fine pieces and stir it into the butter mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the mixture together and serve hot.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Sturgeon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Provides the main body and flavour of the dish once boiled and picked into pieces.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the seasonings and coating the fish pieces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and fish.

The step that matters

Boiling the sturgeon until tender. The fish must be fully cooked and tender so it breaks into fine pieces easily and releases its oils into the water. Undercooked fish stays tough and does not flake well into the butter mixture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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