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Boasted Sturgeon

Roasted sturgeon served with a sauce of cullis, butter, anchovies, Madeira wine, citrus juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Boasted Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marinade

  1. Mix flour, butter, onion, parsley, sweet herbs, vinegar, water, cloves, allspice, pepper, and salt in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Simmer the mixture for a while, then remove from heat and let it cool.

  3. Place the sturgeon in the cooled liquid and let it steep for about 2 hours.

Roast and serve

  1. Tie the sturgeon onto a roasting spit and baste it well with butter.

  2. Prepare a rich sauce by combining cullis, butter, anchovies, Madeira wine, orange or lemon juice, and sugar.

  3. Roast the sturgeon, basting frequently until cooked through.

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, whose firm flesh holds together during long roasting and steeping.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown while basting.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce as it reduces.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth to the sauce, rounding out its flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the steeping liquid, which helps flavour and firm the fish.

The step that matters

Letting the sturgeon steep in the cooled liquid. The liquid must be fully cooled before the fish goes in, because warm liquid can partly cook and toughen the delicate flesh and uneven steeping then follows. Steeping for the full time lets the acidic, herbed liquid season the fish evenly.

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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