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Sturgeon

A dish of sliced sturgeon coated in egg and breadcrumbs, roasted or broiled, served with anchovy sauce and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Rub the egg over the sturgeon slices.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Fold the slices in paper.

  4. Butter a paper well and tie it around the fish.

Make the sauces

  1. Mix butter, anchovy, and soy for the sauce.

  2. In a stewpan, melt butter rolled in flour with cloves, sweet herbs, onions, pepper, salt, water, and vinegar.

  3. Stir until boiling.

  4. Let it cool and steep the fish for 1-2 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie a piece of sturgeon on a spit.

  2. Broil gently.

  3. Roast without letting the spit run through, basting constantly with butter.

  4. Serve with brown gravy, anchovy, a squeeze of Seville orange or lemon, and boiled sherry.

  5. Serve with sorrel and anchovy sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sturgeon + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43 recipes

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

  5. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Is the main fish, cooked whole in slices until tender and flaky.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumb coating adheres to the fish slices.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that helps the fish brown during cooking.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the surface brown when basted.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmered sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Basting constantly with butter. Sturgeon is lean, so without frequent basting the surface can dry out and brown unevenly. Butter adds fat that carries heat and promotes even browning.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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

More sturgeon recipes

Roasted 32Baked 23Cutlets 17Boiled 13Stew 13Pickled 9 See all 3 →

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