Name: Sturgeon Broiled
Ingredients: 1 piece of sturgeon; 3 eggs; ½ cup fine bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; essence of anchovies for serving; soy sauce for serving; cold butter for serving

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sturgeon Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Cut a fine piece of sturgeon and skin it.
Divide the fish into slices.

Coat the slices

Beat the eggs and dip each slice into the eggs.
Mix the bread crumbs with chopped parsley, pepper, and salt.
Coat the slices with the bread crumb mixture.

Broil and serve

Fold the slices in paper and broil them over a clear fire.
Serve with essence of anchovies, soy sauce, and cold butter.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sturgeon + saucetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together93 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon: Firm, meaty fish that holds its shape in slices during broiling.
Eggs: Bind the bread crumb coating to the fish so it adheres during cooking.
Fine bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned coating that protects the fish from drying out.

Swap the parsley

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

Parsleythe original
Capersfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, egg, bread, pepper, sauce, butter. 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.