Sterlet Uha with Champagne

History

Ukha, the clear Russian fish soup, is far older than Molokhovets, who records rather than invents it. The word itself long predated its narrow sense: until the eighteenth century an "ukha" could be built on chicken or duck as readily as fish, and only gradually settled into meaning a fish broth. From the sixteenth century the soup carried prestige at court — sturgeon and its small cousin the sterlet were served at Ivan the Terrible's table, and ukha counted among the tsars' favored dishes. Its aristocratic pedigree is vivid in the tale of Ivan Shuvalov, favorite of Empress Elizaveta, whose ukha was simmered for days until so rich a gold coin was said to float on it. The sterlet version is the luxury apex of the tradition: a small sturgeon prized enough that, even in the nineteenth century, live-sterlet ukha marked a landowner's wealth and was practical mainly near the Volga, since fresh fish travelled poorly. Molokhovets' method is unmistakably haute — a fine fish (or chicken) broth clarified with pressed caviar, the sterlet poached in it, and, for connoisseurs, a finish of Clicquot champagne and good Sauternes served alongside with lemon. Against the fisherman's plain riverbank ukha, sometimes sharpened only with a shot of vodka, this is a showpiece of the servant-run gentry table Molokhovets codified.

Ingredients

• funt small fish (ruffe, perch, whitefish)
• funt white roots
• onion
• greens bouquet
• grains allspice
• bay leaf
• funt pressed caviar
• funt sterlet
• bottle champagne or Sauternes
• lemon

Instructions

1. Cook and strain a broth of small fish (or chicken) with roots and spices; clarify with caviar.
2. Poach the portioned sterlet in the boiling broth about 45 minutes total on gentle heat.
3. Serve the fish over dill, pouring the strained uha; optionally add champagne and Sauternes.