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Cossack Method of Piclding Sturgeon

A method of preserving sturgeon by pickling in vinegar, black pepper, and jelly, then sealing in fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and mutton work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 121 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cossack Method of Piclding Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the small sturgeon into chunks 4 to 5 inches long.

  2. Rub the chunks with coarse sea salt and let drain for several hours.

  3. Tie each piece with thread.

  4. Boil the pieces in equal parts vinegar and water with black pepper until cooked.

  5. Skim off the oil and let the fish cool to remove fat.

  6. Wipe the fish dry.

Make the jelly

  1. Melt the jelly in the pot.

  2. Add more vinegar and black pepper, and boil the jelly until strong, adding isinglass or fish parts if needed.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the sturgeon in small casks and pour over the hot jelly.

  2. Once cooled, pour clarified melted mutton fat over the fish and seal the cask.

  3. Pierce a hole in the head and add more fat, then seal when frozen.

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. Fish + muttontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Sturgeon + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + fishtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Small sturgeon
Forms the main body of the preserve, providing the flesh that is cooked and packed.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that helps preserve the fish and sharpens its flavour.
Isinglass or fish skins
Supplies gelatin that helps the cooking liquid set into a firm jelly.
Clarified melted mutton fat
Forms a sealing layer over the fish that limits contact with air.

The step that matters

Boiling the jelly until strong. The jelly must reach enough gelatin concentration to set firmly when cooled. Adding isinglass or fish parts and boiling down the liquid concentrates the gelatin, so a weak jelly will fail to set and leave the fish poorly protected.

“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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