Sturgeon, Baked
INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons.-1 small sturgeon, salt and pepper to taste, 1 small bunch of herbs, the juice of lemon, lb. of butter, 1 pint of white wine. AVERAGE COST, 1s. to 1s. 6d. per lb.
Cleanse the fish thoroughly, skin it, and split it along the belly without separating it; have ready a large baking-dish, in which lay the fish, sprinkle over the seasoning and herbs, very finely minced, and moisten it with the lemon-juice and wine.
Place the butter in small pieces over the whole of the fish, put it in the oven, and baste frequently; brown it nicely, and serve with its own gravy.
TIME. Nearly 1 hour.
SEASONABLE from August to March. -
A plain wine-and-butter roast that depends almost entirely on not overcooking the fish. Two of the quantities have lost their fractions in printing, and the oven temperature was never given at all.
- The missing fractions"lb. of butter" and "the juice of lemon" have dropped their numerals in this edition; a fraction of a pound of butter and the juice of one lemon is the likely reading. Read it that way rather than guessing upward.
- "1 small sturgeon"A whole small sturgeon is not a thing you will buy. A 2½–3 lb tail piece or a thick centre-cut fillet section, skin removed, feeds six and behaves the same way in the dish.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the book leaves it to the cook's judgement of a coal range. For a thick piece, something in the region of 350-375F works, and the fish should reach 140-145F at the centre.
- Time is the hinge"Nearly 1 hour" suits a whole fish. A 3 lb cut section will be done in 30–40 minutes, and sturgeon dries into something closer to pork loin than fish if pushed past that. Check early and often.
- SkinningSturgeon skin is thick, gritty with bony scutes along the back, and unpleasant to eat. Ask the fishmonger to remove skin and scutes; doing it yourself needs a stiff knife and patience.
- SourcingWild sturgeon is protected or restricted almost everywhere, and all sturgeon and paddlefish are CITES-listed. What is legitimately on sale is farmed, usually Siberian or white sturgeon; buy that. Firm swordfish or halibut steaks take the same treatment if none is available.
- Wine and bastingA pint of dry white wine in an open dish reduces to a thin, sharp pan gravy. Baste every ten minutes or so; if the liquid threatens to dry out before the fish is done, add a splash of water rather than more wine, which will turn the sauce acid.
- ServingSix portions, with the pan juices spooned over. The flesh is dense and rich, so plain boiled potatoes and something green are enough alongside.
Sturgeon carried an odd double reputation in nineteenth-century Britain: a royal fish by ancient prerogative, meaning any taken in English waters technically belonged to the Crown, and yet common enough in the markets of Beeton's day to be quoted at a shilling to eighteen pence a pound — dearer than beef but not extravagant. Its firm, meaty flesh was routinely compared to veal, which is why it is baked and basted here like a joint rather than poached like a delicate fish. Within a century of this book the Atlantic and European stocks had collapsed under fishing pressure and dammed rivers, and the sturgeon went from a market staple to a protected animal; the caviar and flesh sold now come from farms established over recent decades.