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To Stew Sturgeon

A stew of sturgeon slices cooked with veal broth, onion, sweet herbs, wine, butter, and ketchup, served with lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Stew Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Half-fry the sturgeon slices.

  2. Place the fish in a stewpan with veal broth, onion, and sweet herbs.

  3. Stew until the fish is perfectly tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry 1-2 onions in the butter used for frying the fish.

  2. Pour the fried onions and the stewing gravy into a saucepan.

  3. Add wine, butter rolled in flour (or cream), and ketchup (or Cornubian sauce).

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil, then strain it through a sieve.

  5. Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sturgeon + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sturgeon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Firm, thick slices hold their shape through frying and long stewing.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the sauce, giving it body and a smooth, rich texture.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the richness of the broth and butter.
Veal broth
Provides the savoury liquid base that flavours the fish and the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew until the fish is perfectly tender. Sturgeon is firm and can turn dry or tough if overcooked, so it should be stewed gently and checked until it flakes easily, not simmered hard.

“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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