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Sturgeon a LA Russe

A prepared sturgeon served with a sauce of wine, vinegar, and various seafood garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Sturgeon a LA Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Prepare the sturgeon by cooking it in wine, mirepoix, or vinegar and water.

  2. Remove the skin, trim, and coat with stiff glaze mixed with pounded lobster-coral.

Decorate and sauce

  1. Decorate the center with small fillets of gurnets and green gherkins sautéed in butter.

  2. Place turned olives at each end and pour rich Genoise sauce around the sturgeon.

  3. Add lobster butter, cayenne, lemon juice, parsley, capers, crayfish tails, and anchovy quenelles.

  4. Garnish the inner edge with fried smelts.

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. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sturgeon + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and carries the glaze and garnishes.
Stiff glaze
Gives the fish a firm, glossy coating that holds the decoration in place.
Rich genoise sauce
Adds moisture and richness to the plate around the fish.
Lobster butter
Adds fat and a concentrated shellfish aroma and flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and sauce.
Capers
Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Coating the sturgeon with stiff glaze. The glaze must be firm enough to set and hold the decoration, but not so thick that it turns gummy or sits heavy on the fish. Trimming and removing the skin first gives it a smooth surface to adhere to.

“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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