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Sturgeon Ragoot

A stew of sliced sturgeon simmered in stock, sherry, capers, and lemon, finished with a buttery gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sturgeon Ragoot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and dry the sturgeon thoroughly, then cut it into slices, ½ to 1 inch thick.

  2. Cover the slices with vinegar and let them soak for 5 to 6 minutes, then drain and dry.

  3. Coat the fish lightly with flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

Brown and stew

  1. Melt the butter or fat in a pan and fry the fish on both sides until lightly browned, then drain excess fat.

  2. Place the fish in a stewpan, add the sherry (if using) and enough stock to barely cover the fish, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cover and stew gently for about 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a hot dish, strain the gravy, and return it to the stewpan.

  2. Season the gravy to taste, add the capers and a little lemon juice or vinegar, heat thoroughly, and pour over the fish.

  3. Garnish with sliced lemon and serve.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 stew, becoming tender during gentle stewing.
Flour
Light coating that helps the fish brown and thickens the gravy slightly.
Butter or fat
Carries the frying heat and gives the fish a golden, richly flavoured surface.
White stock
Liquid that cooks the fish gently and becomes the body of the gravy.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny note that cuts through the richness of the gravy.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with just enough stock. Gentle heat keeps the fish tender and intact, while a high boil would toughen the flesh and break the slices apart. Using only enough stock to barely cover concentrates the gravy's flavour.

“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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