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Sauce

Epicurean Sauce

A piquant sauce made from soy, ketchup, wine, spices, and vinegar, used with chops, steaks, or fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Epicurean Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine Indian soy, walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, port wine, white pepper, shallots, cayenne, and cloves in a jar.

  2. Macerate the mixture for 14 days in a warm place.

  3. Strain the mixture and add enough white wine vinegar to make exactly 1 pint.

Serve

  1. Use this sauce as a piquant accompaniment for chops, steaks, or fish.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnut ketchup
Adds deep, savoury umami flavour that builds the sauce's character.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes savoury umami depth and a rich, meaty background flavour.
Shallots
Provide mild allium sweetness and aroma that mellow during maceration.
White wine vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Macerate for the full 14 days. Steeping gives the spices, shallots and ketchups time to release their flavour compounds into the liquid. Rushing this stage leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced, with the raw edges of the cayenne and cloves dominating.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, ketchup, mushroom, port wine, shallot, pepper, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, ketchup, mushroom, port wine, shallot, pepper, clove. 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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