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Sauce

Queen Mary's Sauce, for Roast Mutton

A sauce made from anchovy, onion, pepper, port wine, and boiling water, served with roast mutton.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Queen Mary's Sauce, for Roast Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the mutton

  1. Roast the mutton over a clear fire, basting liberally with drippings.

  2. When three-quarters cooked, drain off the fat and place a dish under the meat.

Make and use the sauce

  1. In the dish, combine the anchovy, onion, and pepper.

  2. Pour the port wine and boiling water over the mixture.

  3. Allow the meat drippings to fall into the sauce.

  4. Baste the meat with this sauce until fully cooked.

  5. Serve the mutton on a hot dish and pour the gravy underneath.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Anchovy + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the rich meat and drippings that flavour the sauce as it roasts.
Anchovy
Adds a deep savoury saltiness that enriches the sauce without tasting fishy.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and body to the sauce base.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and fruity depth that balance the rich meat drippings.

The step that matters

Basting the meat with the sauce until fully cooked. Sugars in the port and onion can scorch over a clear fire before the mutton is done. Basting with a moist sauce keeps the surface glossy and flavourful, but the cook must watch the browning and keep the sauce from burning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, anchovy, pepper, port wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, anchovy, pepper, port wine. 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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