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Sturgeon Soup a LA Chinoise

A soup made from sturgeon head, cartilage, and egg yolk pellets, flavored with veal stock, sherry, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Soup a LA Chinoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sturgeon

  1. Cut the sturgeon head in half from the back to the snout, then cut into fist-sized pieces.

  2. Soak the pieces in cold water for several hours, changing the water frequently.

  3. Place the sturgeon pieces in a large stewpan with cold water and boil gently until the shell detaches easily.

  4. Remove the cartilage from the meaty parts and place them in a large stewpan.

Make the soup

  1. Moisten with enough veal stock to make soup for your guests.

  2. Add the essence of turtle herbs, sherry, egg yolks, cream, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Pour the soup into a tureen containing the sturgeon pieces and the prepared egg yolk pellets.

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. Sturgeon + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octene-3-one (sweet, fruity).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  4. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sturgeon + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon head
Provides the main body of the soup, with meat and cartilage that give body and richness.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel to the soup.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can curdle or scramble if the soup boils after they are added. Keep the soup below a simmer and stir steadily so it stays smooth and creamy.

“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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