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Entree of Slices of Sturgeon

Thin slices of sturgeon are sautéed with herbs, then stuffed with forcemeat and breadcrumbs, fried in lard, and served with a caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Entree of Slices of Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat and add parsley, thyme, shallots, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the sturgeon slices and cook until three-quarters done.

  3. Remove the slices and let them cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Place each slice between some light forcemeat.

  2. Strew the forcemeat with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Fry gently in boiling lard until the forcemeat and fish are cooked through.

Serve

  1. Drain the slices and serve with a sauce made from cullis, Madeira wine, and chopped capers.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 and cooks to a firm, flaky texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the herbs and seasonings during the initial cooking.
Light forcemeat
Surrounds the fish with a soft, moist layer that keeps it tender while frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried in lard.
Cullis
Provides the rich, savoury body of the serving sauce.

The step that matters

Fry gently in boiling lard until the forcemeat and fish are cooked through. Frying gently lets the forcemeat and fish heat through to the centre while the crumbs brown slowly. Too fast a fry would brown the outside before the fish is cooked inside.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, parsley, thyme, shallot, butter, pepper, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, parsley, thyme, shallot, butter, pepper, lemon. 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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