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Before You Bake Sturgeon

A baked sturgeon coated in egg and bread crumbs, served with a sauce of kidneys, stock, anchovy essence, cayenne, lemon, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Before You Bake Sturgeon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the sturgeon in salt and water for several hours.

  2. Boil the sturgeon until the bones can be removed.

  3. Pour vinegar over the fish and in the water and salt.

  4. Remove the fish and let it cool.

Coat and bake

  1. Coat the fish with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Sprinkle clarified butter over the fish.

  3. Place the fish in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a thick sauce from the kidneys and good stock.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon essence of anchovies, cayenne pepper, salt, sugar, lemon juice, and wine to the sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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, flaking into pieces once the bones are removed.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating to the fish so it holds together in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the oven.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the coating brown and gives a rich flavour.
Kidneys
Thicken the stock into a rich, smooth sauce base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Place the fish in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown. Baking at a moderate heat dries the crumb coating and browns it through the fat without overcooking the fish. Too high or too long and the fish dries out before the coating colours.

“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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