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Sauce

Worcestershire Sauce

A sauce made from vinegar, catsup, wine, soy, sugar, spices, and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Capsicum and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,904 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Worcestershire Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Boil the hog's liver in 1 gallon of water for 12 hours, adding water as needed to maintain the quantity.

  2. Mix the boiled liver thoroughly with the water and strain it through a coarse sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a large container, combine the white wine vinegar, walnut catsup, mushroom catsup, Madeira wine, Canton soy, moist sugar, salt, powdered capsicum, pimento, coriander, chutney, cloves, mace, cinnamon, and asafetida dissolved in brandy.

  2. Add the strained liver mixture to the sauce and mix well.

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. Capsicum + coriandertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,904 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Walnut + capsicumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Mushroom + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Walnut + coriandertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and rich savory notes.
Mushroom catsup
Adds deep, savory umami flavor that gives the sauce its body.
Walnut catsup
Adds concentrated savory depth and a rich, dark flavor.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the vinegar's sharpness and rounds out the spices.
Canton soy
Contributes salty, savory umami that deepens the overall flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the liver with water top-ups. If the liver boils dry, it can scorch and turn bitter, and the flavor of the strained liver mixture will suffer. Keeping the water level steady keeps the liver gently cooking and its flavor clean.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, mushroom, madeira wine, sugar, capsicum, coriander):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, mushroom, madeira wine, sugar, capsicum, coriander. 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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