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Sturgeon Broiled

Broiled sturgeon coated in breadcrumbs and parsley, served with anchovy essence, soy sauce, and cold butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sturgeon Broiled

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut a piece of sturgeon and skin it.

  2. Slice the fish into portions.

Coat the fish

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Dip each slice of fish into the eggs.

  3. Mix the bread crumbs with parsley, pepper, and salt.

  4. Coat the fish slices with this mixture.

Broil and serve

  1. Wrap the coated slices in paper and broil them over a clear fire.

  2. Serve with essence of anchovies, soy sauce, and cold butter.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, cooked as firm, flaky portions.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating to the fish so it adheres during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the fish while it broils.

The step that matters

Wrapping the coated slices in paper. Paper shields the coating and fish from direct flame, so the crumbs brown without burning before the fish cooks through. Wrapping also traps moisture, keeping the flesh tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, egg, bread, pepper, butter, sauce):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, egg, bread, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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