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Fresh Sturgeon Steak

A marinated sturgeon steak fried and served with a 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

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

  2. Drain and place in a bowl.

  3. Add vinegar, melted butter, salt, black pepper, and lemon juice.

  4. Let marinate for 6 hours, turning occasionally.

  5. Drain and dry on a napkin.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip in egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in very hot fat until cooked.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in French mustard.

  4. Gradually add half of the marinated mixture to create a smooth sauce.

  5. Serve the sauce with the fish.

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
Is the main protein, cooked through by frying after marinating.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that tenderises the fish and brightens its flavour.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter-and-marinade mixture to thicken the smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the marinade and sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned coating when fried.

The step that matters

Dry the fish before frying. Surface moisture from the marinade and water soak turns to steam in hot fat, which prevents a crisp, browned coating and can cause the crumbs to fall off or splatter. Drying on a napkin helps the coating adhere and brown.

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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