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Sturgeon Roasted

Roasted sturgeon served with a brown gravy flavored with anchovy essence, lemon juice, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sturgeon Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Slice the sturgeon but do not remove the skin.

  2. Split the pieces on a skewer and roast gently, basting frequently with butter.

Make the gravy

  1. Prepare a brown gravy and flavor it with essence of anchovies.

  2. Squeeze in the juice of 1/4 lemon and add 1/3 cup of sherry.

  3. Serve the gravy with the roasted fish.

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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

  5. Sturgeon + sherrytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together29 recipes

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

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, with its firm flesh holding together during roasting.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness to the fish and helps it brown as it roasts.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth of flavour to the brown gravy.
Sherry
Adds acidity and sweetness to the gravy, deepening its flavour.

The step that matters

Roast gently and baste frequently. Sturgeon is lean, so high heat or too little fat can dry the flesh out. Frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, butter, sherry. 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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