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Cumberland Sauce

A sweet and tangy sauce made with port wine, red currant jelly, orange, ginger, mustard, and spices.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and mustard work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 47 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Time20 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Bring 2 cups wine and the next eight ingredients to a boil in a large saucepan, stirring constantly; reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir together the remaining ½ cup wine and cornstarch until smooth, then stir in the hot mixture and bring to a boil over medium heat.

  3. Boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute; cool.

Store and serve

  1. Pour sauce into sterilized jars, seal, and store in refrigerator up to one month.

  2. Reheat before serving.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Red currant + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Orange + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Red currant + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Port wine + red curranttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Red currant jelly
Provides the body, sweetness and fruity flavour that form the sauce's base.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it a glossy, spoonable texture.
Port wine
Adds depth and acidity to the sauce and helps dissolve the jelly.
Orange juice
Contributes acidity and citrus sweetness that balance the jelly.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that rounds out the sharp fruit flavours.

The step that matters

Boiling with cornstarch. Cornstarch thickens only once it reaches a full boil and is held there briefly. Stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the pan bottom, so the sauce thickens evenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, red currant, sugar, orange, ginger, pepper):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, red currant, sugar, orange, ginger, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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