438. Sturgeon Au Gratin, With Fine Herbs

This method of dressing sturgeon should be resorted to only when it happens that a sufficient remnant is left from the previous day's dinner. In such a case, cut the sturgeon into neatly-trimmed scollops, and toss these in some reduced Allemande sauce, incorporated with some of the essence of the sturgeon - previously boiled down to glaze; add some fine herbs, lemon-juice, a little grated nutmeg, and half a pat of anchovy butter; mix the whole well together ; put the scollops on a silver dish, piled up in the form of a dome; cover them with some fried bread-crumbs, mixed with one-third part of grated fresh Parmesan cheese. About twenty minutes before dinner-time, place the dish in the oven to gratinate the scollops: pass the red-hot salamander over them, to melt the cheese ; pour round some of the sauce reserved for the purpose; garnish with some croquettes of stur geon, lobster, or potatoes, and send to table.

439. Sturgeon A La Russe

Braize the sturgeon as usual, either in some wine mirepoix. or merely in vinegar and water, when economy is an object. When the sturgeon is done, take off the skin, trim, and mask it with some stiff glaze mixed with some pounded lobster-coral; ornament it on the centre with some small fillets of gurnets contises with green gherkins, - previously placed in a buttered sauta-pan, in the shape of half-moons, and simmered in a little butter; at each end place a row of turned olives; pour round it some rich Genoise sauce (No. 30)- finished with a good piece of lobster butter, cayenne, and lemon-juice, a spoonful of chopped and blanched parsley, two spoonsful of capers, some turned olives, two dozen crayfish tails, and about the same quantity of small quenelles of anchovies. Garnish round the inner edge of the dish with some smelts trussed in the same way as whitings, and fried.

440. Sturgeon A L'Anglaise

Trim and skin a fine piece of sturgeon - or a small whole fish ; line the inside with some well-seasoned ordinary veal-stuffing; replace the skin, and secure it with string; put the sturgeon on a drainer in the fish-kettle; garnish with carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, and bay-leaf, mace, peppercorns, and six cloves, a handful of trim-miugs of mushrooms, and a little salt; moisten with a bottle of port wine; cover with a well-buttered paper, and set it on the fire to boil; then place it on a slow fire to stew gently till it is done. Next drain, trim, and glaze it; place it on a dish, and put it in the hot closet until dinner-time. Meanwhile, take some of the liquor in which the sturgeon has been stewed, with three glasses of good Port wine, and boil the whole down to half-glaze, and add it to some finished Espagnole, or brown sauce; work in a pat of anchovy butter, and two pats of fresh butter, a little cayenne, grated nutmeg, and lemon-juice; pour the sauce into a stewpan containing some button-mushrooms, scollops of lobster, and small quenelle of whiting, colored with some very fine chopped and blanched parsley; allow the whole to boil up for a minute on the stove; sauce the sturgeon over with this ragout; garnish it round with a border of large crayfish, and serve.

Sturgeon, in addition to the preceding modes of preparation, may be dressed similarly to salmon, in all its varieties.