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Sturgeon Cutlets

Sturgeon cutlets fried in lard and served in a ketchup and wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the tail piece of the sturgeon and remove the gristle.

  2. Cut the sturgeon into slices half an inch thick.

  3. Sprinkle the slices with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Dredge the slices in flour.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the slices in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. In a separate pot, combine 1 pint of water, 1 tablespoon of butter rubbed into 1 tablespoon of brown flour, a little ketchup, and a little wine.

  3. Stew the fried cutlets in the gravy for a few minutes.

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 + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  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).

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
Forms the main body of the cutlets, cooking to a firm, flaky texture.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in the hot lard and help thicken the gravy.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness and flavor when rubbed into the brown flour.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty color and flavor.
Ketchup
Adds tomato-based acidity and sweetness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in hot lard until golden brown. Lard must be hot enough to brown the flour coating quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy while the fish overcooks before browning.

“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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