No. 1289

Sturgeon or Sterlet with Quenelles and Olives-Small

Petit Esturgeon ou Sterlet aux Quenelles et Olives

Take a small sturgeon or sterlet weighing eight to ten pounds; scale, suppress all the large scales from the back and sides; open it on the belly side in order to empty and notch the inside ligament, taking the place of the spinal bone, at equal distances, with the tip of a knife, then tie the head down with a string. Place the fish in a small narrow fish kettle, sufficiently long, garnish with fat pork, minced roots and onions, salt, and cover over with thin slices of pork, keeping them down in their place with some string. Moisten to half the height with white wine and very rich veal blond (No. 423); boil the liquid for ten minutes, remove it on one side so as to cook the fish slowly while covered, for about an hour. Drain the sturgeon, untie, then strain and skim the stock, reducing it to a half-glaze, and incorporating into it slowly a few gills of a good, reduced brown sauce (No. 414), finishing with a few spoonfuls of Madeira wine, then strain once more. At the very last moment, drain the fish, place on a dish, and surround it with garnishing of quenelles and stuffed olives; cover with some of the sauce, sending the rest to the table in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1288 Sturgeon Fricandeau, with Sorrel or with Gre Eels, Pike, Carp & Sturgeon No. 1290 Trout a la Beaufort →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is braising a whole fish in the classic braisière manner: pork fat, wine, veal stock, then a reduction finished with espagnole and Madeira. Nearly all the work is in the stock, which the book assumes you already have on hand.

Sourcing the fishEvery wild sturgeon and sterlet species is now CITES-listed, and wild harvest is banned or tightly restricted in the US and Europe. Farmed sturgeon (white, Siberian, sterlet) is legally sold and is the only sensible source; a whole 8-10 lb farmed fish must usually be ordered ahead.
The notochord, not a spineSturgeon have no bony backbone. The "inside ligament" is the notochord, the gelatinous cord Russian cooks dry and sell as vesiga. Notching it at intervals was presumably meant to stop the fish bowing as it contracts in the heat.
ScutesThe "large scales" are the bony scutes running along the back and flanks. They are cut off with a stiff knife rather than scraped; the skin between them can stay on during braising and be lifted off before saucing.
Cooking temperature and timeAn hour of covered, barely-trembling liquid for an 8-10 lb fish suggests a taste for firmly set fish. Sturgeon flesh is lean and dense and dries out past about 135-140F at the thickest point; check with a thermometer well before the hour is up. Note that Ranhofer keeps the kettle on the stove, drawn to one side, rather than in an oven.
Veal blond and brown sauceNo. 423 is Ranhofer's blond of veal, a pale veal stock; No. 414 is his brown sauce (espagnole). A good unsalted veal stock reduced hard, plus a well-made demi-glace, gets you to the same place. Reduction concentrates any salt already in them, so hold back the seasoning until the final strain.
GillsA gill is half a cup, so "a few gills" of reduced brown sauce means roughly a cup to a cup and a half going into the reduced braising liquid.
Fish kettleA narrow poissonnière with a perforated lifting rack is what lets you move a whole braised sturgeon intact. Lacking one, a deep roasting pan with the fish on a doubled sling of cheesecloth works; the fish must sit in liquid only halfway up, not be submerged.
The garnishQuenelles here are poached forcemeat dumplings, usually pike or veal, shaped between two spoons; the olives are green olives stoned and stuffed, typically with the same forcemeat or with anchovy. Both are made separately and warmed in a little of the sauce at the last minute.
YieldA dressed 8-10 lb sturgeon serves ten to twelve as a main course, and more as one course of a longer menu.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this dish sits at the meeting point of two traditions he could draw on. Sterlet, the small Danube and Volga sturgeon, was a luxury of Russian and Austro-Hungarian tables, and is said to have sometimes been shipped alive in tanks; sturgeon proper was, in nineteenth-century America, cheap and abundant. Hudson River sturgeon was salted and sold widely enough around the state capital that it was commonly called "Albany beef." Treating the fish as a joint of meat, barded with pork, braised in veal stock and finished with espagnole and Madeira, follows from its texture rather than any pretension: sturgeon flesh is firm and close-grained enough to take a brown sauce that would overwhelm most fish. The abundance did not last. Overfishing for flesh and caviar collapsed the American and Caspian stocks within a generation or two of this book, and the fish Ranhofer bought by the whole is now farmed and protected.