Skip to main content
Baking

Worcester Sauce

A fermented sauce made from cayenne pepper, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, shallots, and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Garlic and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Worcester Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix all ingredients well in a bowl.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve to remove solids.

Rest and bottle

  1. Cork the mixture and let it sit for 10 days.

  2. After 10 days, bottle the sauce for use.

  3. Strain again if desired before using.

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. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acts as the preserving base and provides the sharp, acidic bite of the sauce.
Anchovies
Add a deep, salty savoriness that rounds out the sauce.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savory depth to the liquid.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aroma as their flavors steep into the vinegar.
Cayenne pepper
Provides the sharp heat that defines the sauce's character.

The step that matters

Let it sit for 10 days. Steeping gives the solids time to release their flavors into the vinegar. Bottling too early leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced, since the vinegar and aromatics have not yet blended.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, sauce, garlic, shallot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, sauce, garlic, shallot. 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

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes