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Sturgeon, Stuffed and Roasted
Take the tail end of a moderate-sized sturgeon; cleanse thoroughly, then bone and skin it. Fill it with good veal forcemeat, roll it in buttered paper, and bind it securely with tape. Place it in a cradle-spit, put it down before a clear fire, and baste liberally whilst it is roasting. When it is done enough, serve on a hot dish with plain melted butter, brown gravy, or a sauce prepared as follows. Put into a small saucepan a glassful of sherry, a table-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, and a few drops of essence of anchovy. Let the sauce boil up; then serve. Time to roast, about an hour.
A spit-roast fish joint treated like a rolled veal roast, which is exactly how the period regarded sturgeon: dense, pale and meaty rather than flaky. Almost everything here translates to an oven, but the sourcing question comes first.
- Sourcing the fishAll sturgeon species are listed under CITES, and wild populations are protected under national law across most of Europe and North America, so wild-caught sturgeon is generally not available on the legal market. Farmed sturgeon, raised largely for caviar, is available from specialist suppliers and is what any modern version of this would use.
- The hinge: do not roast it an hourSturgeon is lean and firm and turns dry and cottony when overcooked. A boned, stuffed tail piece is done when the centre of the fish reaches about 135-140F; check early rather than trusting the stated hour, which assumes an open fire and constant basting.
- Cradle-spit to ovenA cradle-spit was a hinged basket that held an awkward joint in front of the fire and turned it. In an oven, roast on a rack in a shallow tin at 375-400F and baste with butter every ten minutes, since there is no radiant heat crisping the outside.
- Buttered paper and tapeSubstitute buttered parchment for the paper and butcher's twine for the tape, tied at inch intervals so the roll holds its shape. Remove the paper for the last few minutes if you want any colour on the surface.
- Veal forcemeatThe usual period forcemeat is minced veal, or veal and suet, with breadcrumbs, egg, lemon zest, herbs and mace. Any firm, well-seasoned stuffing bound with egg does the job; it must be cooked through, which is the real constraint on roasting time.
- Essence of anchovyA bottled anchovy extract, common in period store cupboards. Anchovy paste is the closest thing on a modern shelf, used sparingly; a scant half-teaspoon is enough for the quantity of sauce given.
- A glassful of sherryA wine glass in Victorian cookery books is roughly 2 to 2.5 fl oz, so about a quarter cup, not a modern tumbler. Boiled up with lemon juice and anchovy it makes a thin, sharp sauce rather than an emulsion.
- YieldThe recipe gives no weight, only 'the tail end of a moderate-sized sturgeon', so the number served depends entirely on the piece you have. Scale the sauce to the size of the roll.
Sturgeon has an unusual legal history in Britain: since the medieval period it has been counted a "royal fish", and the prerogative claiming sturgeon caught in English waters for the Crown is traditionally traced to the reign of Edward II. That status, plus the fish's size and firm white flesh, meant it was handled in the kitchen more like a joint of meat than like turbot or cod - boned, stuffed with veal forcemeat, spitted and basted, exactly as this entry directs. The comparison with veal was one some nineteenth-century cookery writers seem to have drawn, and the sherry-and-anchovy sauce here is one of several sauces served with fish in Victorian kitchens, sharp enough to cut the richness of a basted roast. The abundance that made such recipes possible is gone: overfishing and dam-building through the twentieth century collapsed sturgeon populations worldwide, and the fish that once appeared in general dictionaries of cookery is now among the most heavily protected in the water.