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Sturgeon, Roasted
Take a piece of sturgeon cut from the middle of a good-sized fish. Cleanse thoroughly, and skin it, season with salt and pepper, and tie thin slices of fat bacon round it. Take a piece of writing-paper large enough to cover the fish entirely. Butter it thickly, and spread over it sliced carrots and onions with a small quantity of powdered sweet herbs, and wrap the fish in it. Tie two more sheets of buttered paper upon it, bind securely with tape, and put the sturgeon in a cradle-spit, or tie it to an ordinary spit, and roast before a clear fire. When done enough take it down, pour a little matelote sauce over it, and send more to table in a tureen. The sauce may be made as follows. Put half a pint of good brown sauce into a saucepan with eighteen fried button onions, the same number of small mushrooms, and a glassful of claret. Boil all gently together for ten minutes. Add a pinch of pepper, a little grated nutmeg, a small lump of sugar, and a few drops of essence of anchovy. When the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, take the sauce off the fire, stir into it until dissolved a small lump of butter, and it will be ready for serving. Time, according to age and size.
This is a spit-roast wrapped in buttered paper — an early form of cooking en papillote — and it translates directly to an oven. The two things that need attention are the paper itself and the doneness of the fish.
- Sourcing the fishEvery wild sturgeon species is now protected to some degree, and trade in wild-caught fish and roe is restricted under CITES. Buy farmed sturgeon (white, Siberian or beluga hybrid), which is widely available as loin steaks or a centre-cut piece and is what the recipe wants anyway.
- "Writing-paper"This means plain paper of the period, not modern printer or writing paper, which is bleached, sometimes coated, and not intended for food or heat. Use baking parchment, buttered as directed; three layers as specified is not excessive, since the outer sheets are the sacrificial armour.
- Fire to ovenSkip the cradle-spit. The buttered-paper parcel, tied with kitchen string, goes on a rack in a roasting tin at 375F. Turn the parcel once halfway through so both faces get the same heat.
- Doneness, which is the hingeSturgeon is dense and meaty and turns dry and chalky if taken far. "Time, according to age and size" is no help: cook to an internal temperature of 130-135F at the thickest point, which is roughly 12-15 minutes per pound for a thick centre cut. Rest it 5 minutes in the paper before unwrapping.
- The baconThin slices of fat bacon here act as barding rather than as seasoning. Unsmoked streaky bacon or thinly sliced fatback is closer to the intent than heavily smoked supermarket bacon.
- Sweet herbsUsually a dried mixture along the lines of thyme, marjoram and savory, sometimes with basil or parsley. A pinch is enough; the vegetables in the parcel act as aromatics, and the recipe does not say what becomes of them.
- Sauce quantitiesHalf an imperial pint of brown sauce is about 10 fl oz, or a little over 1 US cup; a "glassful" of claret is usually reckoned at somewhere between 2 and 4 fl oz of dry red Bordeaux. "Good brown sauce" is espagnole or demi-glace — a reduced veal or beef stock thickened lightly, and a good jarred demi-glace works. Essence of anchovy is anchovy paste, about half a teaspoon.
- Finishing the sauceThe butter must go in off the heat and be stirred until just melted. If the sauce boils after the butter is added it will break and look greasy rather than glossy.
- YieldA centre cut of 2 to 2 1/2 lb serves four to six. The sauce quantity given is generous for that, as intended — some over the fish, the rest in a tureen.
Sturgeon has been a royal fish in England since the medieval period: by long-standing prerogative, sturgeon taken in English waters or cast ashore belonged to the Crown, a rule usually traced to the reign of Edward II and still nominally in force. That status kept the fish on grand tables and out of ordinary kitchens, and it explains the treatment here — barded with fat, wrapped in paper, spit-roasted like a joint of meat and served with a red-wine matelote. Sturgeon flesh is firm and pale and was routinely compared to veal, so cooks handled it as butcher's meat rather than as fish. Cassell's was published when North American and European sturgeon fisheries were still commercially large, chiefly for caviar; the collapse of those stocks over the following century is why the fish a Victorian cook could order from the fishmonger now reaches the table almost entirely from aquaculture.