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Sauce for Sturgeon

A sauce made from sturgeon skin, bone, vegetables, butter, stock, vinegar, and seasonings, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sauce for Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine sturgeon skin, gristly bone, carrot, onion, parsley, peppercorns, salt, garlic, bay leaf, and butter in a stewpan.

  2. Stir over medium heat until the butter begins to fry.

  3. Add 1½ cups of beef stock and ⅓ cup of vinegar.

  4. Boil for a few minutes.

  5. Add 2 ladles of stock and simmer gently until the sturgeon pieces are thoroughly cooked.

  6. Strain the liquid through a sieve into a deep dish, reserving one ladleful free from fat.

Finish the sauce

  1. Boil down the reserved ladleful until it reduces to one third.

  2. Add butter sauce and a small bit of espagnole or beef glaze to the reduced liquid for strength and color.

  3. Heat the sauce, squeeze in the lemon juice, and pour it around the sturgeon before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon skin and gristly bone
Release gelatin and flavor into the stock, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns lightly at the start for flavor.
Beef stock
Provides the savory liquid base that the sauce reduces from.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor of the sauce.
Espagnole or beef glaze
Deepens the color and adds savory, meaty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil down the reserved ladleful until it reduces to one third. Reduction concentrates flavor and gelatin, so the sauce gains body and strength. Stopping early leaves it thin and weak, while over-reducing can make it salty and sticky.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, butter, beef):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, butter, beef. 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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