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Sauce

Superlative Sauce

A sauce made from claret or port wine, mushroom ketchup, anchovies, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Superlative Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine all ingredients in a wide-mouthed bottle.

  2. Seal the bottle tightly and shake it every day for two weeks.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Optionally add ¼ cup soy sauce or thick browning for extra flavor.

Serve

  1. Use the sauce with fish, game, poultry, or ragouts.

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. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Claret or port wine
Adds body, acidity and fruity depth to the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savory, umami flavor.
Anchovies
Dissolve during steeping to add deep savory, salty richness.
Shallots
Release mild aromatic sweetness and onion-like flavor during steeping.
Horseradish
Adds sharp pungency that mellows and spreads through the liquid.

The step that matters

Shaking daily for two weeks. Steeping over time lets the flavors from solid ingredients extract gradually into the liquid. Sealing the bottle keeps aromas in and prevents spoilage, while daily shaking keeps the ingredients evenly in contact with the liquid so the flavor develops uniformly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, mushroom, ketchup, walnut, shallot, horseradish, allspice. 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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