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Cumberland Sauce

A sauce made with red currant jelly, raspberry jelly, mustard, salad oil, brown sauce, red wine, orange mustard, German syrup, lemon mustard, dry English mustard, and orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 155 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Cumberland Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, stir together the red currant jelly, raspberry jelly, mustard, and salad oil until well combined.

  2. Add the brown sauce and continue stirring until all ingredients are mixed thoroughly.

  3. Gradually incorporate the remaining ingredients: red wine, orange mustard, German syrup, lemon mustard, dry English mustard, and orange peel.

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. Red currant + raspberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Syrup + saucetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Orange + red curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 sweetness and fruity body that defines the sauce.
Raspberry jelly
Adds additional sweetness and fruit flavor with a smooth, glossy texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat that gives the sauce a smoother, looser mouthfeel.
Brown sauce
Contributes savory depth and a darker color to the sauce.
Dry english mustard
Adds sharp heat that balances the sweetness of the jellies.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, orange, syrup, lemon, sauce, red currant, raspberry):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, orange, syrup, lemon, sauce, red currant, raspberry. 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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