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Salad

Sturgeon Salad

A salad of finely chopped cooked sturgeon mixed with a mustard‑vinegar dressing and garnished with lettuce and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sturgeon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the sturgeon until well done, then chop it finely, removing all fat and gristle.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard with vinegar until smooth. Gradually stir in the olive oil, drop by drop.

  2. Add the powdered egg yolks, salt, pepper, and chopped pickles to the dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the sturgeon just before serving.

  2. Transfer to a salad bowl and garnish with lettuce leaves and egg whites cut in rings.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Olive + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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 salad as the flaked, cooked protein.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Powdered yolks thicken the dressing and add a rich, creamy texture.
Olive oil
Added drop by drop to emulsify with mustard and vinegar, giving the dressing body and richness.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil and vinegar together in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Pickles
Chopped cucumber pickles add acidity and a crisp, tangy bite.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil drop by drop. Oil added too quickly to mustard and vinegar can fail to emulsify and separate, leaving a greasy, broken dressing. Adding it slowly lets the mustard bind the oil into a smooth, stable emulsion.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, mustard, vinegar, olive, egg, pepper, cucumber):

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Lettucethe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, mustard, vinegar, olive, egg, pepper, cucumber. 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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