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STURGEON (a la Russe)
Take a piece of sturgeon weighing about two pounds. Cleanse thoroughly, scale it, remove the spikes, and lay it in salt and water for ten or twelve hours. An hour before it is wanted rub it well with vinegar, and let it lie with a little vinegar poured round it. Put it into a fish-kettle with as much boiling water as will cover it, and add two onions, a bunch of sweet herbs, and an ounce of bay salt. Let it boil gently till done enough, take it up, flour it well, put it before a brisk fire, and baste it with butter till it is well browned. Put it on a dish, and pour over it, or serve separately in a tureen, a sauce prepared as follows. Bone and skin two anchovies, and put them into a saucepan with a glass of white wine, a button onion, an inch of lemon-rind, and a cupful of stock. Boil all gently together for a minute or two. Strain the sauce, thicken it with flour and butter, stir two table-spoonfuls of thick cream into it, and serve.
A two-stage treatment — brine, poach, then brown with butter — that suits sturgeon's dense, almost meaty flesh. Most of the work is in getting the fish right; the sauce is a quick anchovy-and-wine velouté.
- Sourcing the fishMost wild sturgeon species are protected or CITES-restricted, and trade in wild roe is heavily regulated or, in some cases (beluga into the US), banned. Farmed sturgeon (white, Siberian, beluga hybrids) is sold as steaks and loin pieces and is what to use here; a 2 lb centre-cut piece is the equivalent.
- Scales and spikesThe "spikes" are the bony scutes running along the fish's back and sides. Farmed sturgeon is normally sold already skinned and trimmed, in which case scaling and de-spiking are done for you.
- The long soakTen or twelve hours in salt and water was a Victorian kitchen operation at cellar temperature. Do it in the refrigerator, not on the counter — this is a mild brine, not a cure, and it will not keep fish safe at room temperature.
- Bay saltCoarse sea salt, slightly grey and mineral; the name is usually explained as sea salt from bays (the Bay of Biscay in particular), though the derivation is traditional rather than certain. Any coarse sea salt stands in; use about 1 oz by weight, not by volume.
- Sweet herbsA tied bundle of parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf. Nothing sweet is intended; the phrase was the usual term for aromatic herbs used for flavouring.
- "Till done enough"Poach at a bare shiver, around 175F, never a rolling boil, which shreds the flakes. A 2 lb piece needs roughly 20-25 minutes; pull it at 130-135F internal. Sturgeon dries out fast past that point and turns chalky.
- Browning "before a brisk fire"This is spit-and-hearth language for radiant heat on one side. A broiler at high heat, 4-5 inches away, gives the same result: flour the poached fish lightly, baste with melted butter, and turn once. Three or four minutes a side is enough — the fish is already cooked.
- The sauce quantities"A glass of white wine" is unspecified; a Victorian wineglassful is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so use 2-4 fl oz to taste. A cupful of stock is roughly 8 fl oz. Thicken with beurre manié -- equal parts soft butter and flour, about 1 tablespoon of each -- whisked in off the boil, then add the cream and keep it below a simmer so it does not split.
- YieldA 2 lb piece serves four as a main course with the sauce and a plain starch.
Sturgeon was a royal fish in England, technically the property of the Crown when caught in British waters. The label à la Russe is often taken to point at the Caspian and Volga fisheries that dominated the sturgeon trade, and to the fashion for Russian service and Russian dishes that ran through late-Victorian dining rooms alongside caviar, kummel and charlotte russe. The treatment here — brine, poach, then flour and brown with butter — is essentially how English cooks handled any large firm-fleshed fish they suspected of being coarse or strong, and it tells you the flesh was expected to be dense enough to take roasting-style heat without falling apart. Cassell's gathered such entries alphabetically as a reference work, which is why an expensive and increasingly scarce fish sits in the same pages as cod and herring.</p>