Name: Fillets of Sturgeon Saute with Young Peas
Ingredients: slices of sturgeon; 2 tablespoons clarified butter; ¼ cup water; juice of ½ lemon; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; stewed peas (for serving)

Why it works: Lemon and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,005 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fillets of Sturgeon Saute with Young Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sturgeon

Lay the sturgeon slices in a cutlet pan with clarified butter, water, lemon juice, and salt.
Sauté over moderate heat for a few minutes until cooked through, ensuring they remain white.
Transfer the cooked sturgeon to a plate to drain excess liquid.

Serve

Arrange the sturgeon slices around the dish and place stewed peas in the center.

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.

Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,005 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sturgeon + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together237 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sturgeon + peastop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon slices: Provide the main protein, which cooks through quickly in the gentle pan heat.
Clarified butter: Adds rich fat and carries flavour while the fish sautés without burning.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Sautéing the sturgeon until cooked through. Sturgeon is firm and can dry out or toughen if overcooked, while undercooked fish is unsafe. Cooking over moderate heat for a few minutes, and watching for the flesh to turn opaque white, helps it cook evenly and stay moist.

“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.