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Sauce

Christopher North's Sauce for Meat or Game

A sauce for meat or game made with Harvey's sauce, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, melted butter, port wine, mushroom ketchup, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Christopher North's Sauce for Meat or Game

Ingredients

Directions

Combine

  1. Combine 1 glass of port wine, 2 tablespoonfuls of Harvey's sauce, 1 dessertspoonful of mushroom ketchup, the same amount of pounded white sugar, 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoonful of cayenne pepper, and the same amount of salt in a vessel. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Heat

  1. Heat the sauce gradually by placing the vessel in a saucepan of boiling water. Do not allow the sauce to boil.

Serve

  1. Serve directly when ready.

  2. If bottled immediately, the sauce will keep good for a fortnight.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

277Calories
28 gProtein
13 gFat
10 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Shrimp100g cooked99
Port Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Saucenot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Port wine
Adds wine flavour and depth to the sauce.
Harvey's sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce gradually and do not let it boil. Gentle, indirect heat from a water bath warms the sauce evenly. Boiling can make a butter-based sauce separate or turn grainy, spoiling its smooth texture.

“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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