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Worcestershire Sauce

A fermented sauce made with cayenne pepper, black pepper, garlic, anchovies, nutmeg, cloves, vinegar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Worcestershire Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a jug.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 2 weeks.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the sauce and bottle it for use.

  2. Cork tightly and store in a dry, cool place.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add savory depth, a deep umami backbone to the sauce.
Vinegar
Acts as the main liquid and preserving base, extracting flavor from the spices and garlic over time.
Garlic
Adds pungent aromatic flavor that mellows and blends during the long standing.
Cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that infuse into the vinegar during standing.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand for 2 weeks. The long rest lets the vinegar extract flavor from the spices, garlic and anchovies. Cutting it short leaves the sauce sharp and unblended, with raw, harsh notes.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, nutmeg, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, nutmeg, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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