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Sauce

Imitation Worcestershire Sauce

A homemade sauce resembling Worcestershire, made with cayenne pepper, walnut catsup, shallots, anchovies, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Imitation Worcestershire Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine cayenne, walnut catsup, minced shallots, minced anchovies, powdered cloves, and vinegar in a stone jar.

  2. Place the jar in hot water and bring to a boil.

  3. Strain the mixture and cover it tightly.

Rest and bottle

  1. Let it sit for two days, then bottle and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Adds deep savoury umami that gives the sauce its characteristic richness.
Walnut catsup
Contributes dark, tangy fermented depth and body to the sauce.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like aromatic sharpness that mellows during steeping.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that carries the flavours and helps preserve the sauce.
Cayenne pepper
Supplies heat, the sharp pungent note that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Let it sit for two days, then bottle and seal. Steeping lets the acid, anchovy, shallot and spice flavours blend and mellow together. Bottling and sealing keeps the sauce airtight so it stays fresh and safe for storage.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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