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To Bake Sturgeon

A baked sturgeon stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, parsley, and shallot, simmered in wine, ketchup, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Bake Sturgeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scrape the sturgeon well and cut out the gristle.

  2. Boil the sturgeon for 20 minutes to extract the oil.

  3. Remove the large scales once cooled.

Stuff and stew

  1. Mix bread crumbs, butter, salt, parsley, and shallot to make force-meat.

  2. Stuff the sturgeon with the force-meat.

  3. Place the sturgeon in a pan with water, wine, ketchup, salt, and cayenne.

  4. Stew the sturgeon until cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with butter rubbed in chopped parsley.

  2. Garnish with sprigs of parsley 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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sturgeon
Is the main protein, cooked through by boiling and then stewing until tender.
Bread crumbs
Bind with butter and herbs to form the stuffing, absorbing moisture and adding body.
Butter
Adds richness to the stuffing and, rubbed in parsley, thickens the gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid, balancing the fish's richness.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tang to the stewing liquid, deepening its colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Stew the sturgeon until cooked through. Fish protein sets as it heats and turns dry and tough if overcooked, so stop once the flesh flakes easily and is opaque throughout. Stuffing adds bulk, so the centre needs checking too.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sturgeon, bread, butter, parsley, wine, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sturgeon, bread, butter, parsley, wine, ketchup, pepper. 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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