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Roasted Sturgeon

A sturgeon roasted on a spit, marinated in a herb and vinegar mixture, served with a sauce of anchovies, butter, Madeira wine, citrus, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roasted Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marinade

  1. Mix flour and butter in a saucepan over heat.

  2. Add onion, parsley, sweet herbs, vinegar, water, cloves, allspice, pepper, and salt.

  3. Simmer the mixture, then remove from heat.

  4. Cool the mixture and steep the sturgeon in it for about 2 hours.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the sturgeon on a spit and baste with butter while roasting.

  2. Prepare a rich sauce with anchovies, butter, Madeira wine, citrus juice, and sugar.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Is the main protein, cooked through by roasting and flavoured by the steeping liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while basting, helping the surface brown and stay tender.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the marinade liquid.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the rich sauce.
Anchovies
Melt into the sauce, adding savoury depth without a fishy taste.

The step that matters

Steeping the sturgeon. The fish must be fully cooled before steeping; a warm liquid would partly cook the flesh and make its texture uneven. Steeping for the full time lets the flavours penetrate evenly before roasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, flour, butter, parsley, vinegar, clove, allspice):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, flour, butter, parsley, vinegar, clove, allspice. 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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