Skip to main content
Drink

Epicurean Sauce

A sauce made from Indian soy, walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, port wine, white pepper, shallots, cayenne pepper, cloves, and white wine vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Epicurean Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine Indian soy, walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, port wine, bruised white pepper, shallots, cayenne pepper, and cloves in a jar.

  2. Macerate the mixture for 14 days in a warm place.

  3. Strain the mixture and add enough white wine vinegar to make exactly 1 pint.

Serve

  1. Use this sauce as a piquant accompaniment for chops, steaks, or fish.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnut ketchup
Adds deep, rich savoury flavour to the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep, savoury umami flavour to the sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild, aromatic onion-like flavour as they steep.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity and makes up the final volume, providing sharpness.

The step that matters

Macerate for 14 days in a warm place. Long steeping lets the spices, shallots and sauces slowly release their flavours into the liquid. Too short a steep leaves the sauce flat and harsh, while the warm place keeps the infusion steady.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, ketchup, mushroom, port wine, shallot, pepper, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, ketchup, mushroom, port wine, shallot, pepper, clove. 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesWine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipes