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Sturgeon Steaks

Sturgeon steaks are soaked in saltwater, dredged in flour, fried, and finished with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sturgeon Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sturgeon steaks in a mixture of salt and water for a short time.

  2. Dredge the soaked steaks in flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the steaks quickly in a hot pan.

  2. Pour melted butter and fried parsley over the cooked steaks 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Sturgeon + parsleytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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
Firm, meaty fish that holds together when fried as steaks.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns during frying and helps seal the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and a nutty flavour when poured over the hot steaks.

The step that matters

Fry the steaks quickly in a hot pan. A hot pan browns the flour coating fast and sears the surface, so the fish cooks through before it dries out or falls apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, flour, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, flour, butter. 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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