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To Stew Sturgeon

A stew of sliced sturgeon cooked in veal broth with onions, sweet herbs, wine, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Stew Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Fry the sturgeon slices until half‑cooked.

Stew

  1. Place the fried sturgeon in a stewpan with veal broth, onion, and sweet herbs.

  2. Stew until the fish is tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry 1–2 onions in the butter used for frying the fish.

  2. Add the fried onions and the stew gravy to a saucepan.

  3. Stir in wine, butter rolled in flour or cream, and ketchup or Cornubian sauce.

  4. Bring to a boil, then strain the sauce through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sturgeon + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sturgeon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Firm white fish that holds its shape during frying and slow stewing.
Veal broth
Provides the savoury, gelatin-rich liquid that gives the stew its body and flavour.
Butter rolled in flour or cream
Flour or cream thickens the sauce and adds richness and a smooth texture.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Onions
Frying them in butter builds sweetness and savoury depth in the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then strain the sauce through a sieve.. Boiling a flour- or cream-thickened sauce cooks out the raw starch taste and sets its thickness; straining removes onion pieces for a smooth result.

“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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