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Sturgeon Stew'ed with Madeira Wine

A stew of sturgeon cooked with Madeira wine, butter, lemon juice, and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Sturgeon Stew'ed with Madeira Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Set the sturgeon to stew with water as directed in the previous recipe, using half Madeira wine.

  2. Let it stew gently until cooked, then carefully remove it and place it on a dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the cooking liquid through a silk sieve into a stewpan and skim off all the fat.

  2. Heat the strained liquid until it boils, then add nearly the same quantity of sauce tournee.

  3. Stir and let it boil gently until reduced to a moderate thickness.

  4. Mix in the fresh butter and lemon juice until well combined.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the sturgeon on the dish and add mushrooms if desired.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Madeira wine + mushroomtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together176 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
Is the main protein, cooked gently in the stew liquid until tender.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the cooking liquid and the finished sauce.
Fresh butter
Enriches the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, glossy texture when stirred in.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce to a moderate thickness. Reducing the liquid concentrates flavour and thickens it. Boiling too hard or too long can over-reduce the sauce, while too little reduction leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, madeira wine, butter, mushroom):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Plumfits less well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, madeira wine, butter, mushroom. 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.

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