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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
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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

Make the sauce

  1. Mix cayenne pepper, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, shallots, and anchovies in a bowl.

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

Age and strain

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

  2. 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

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add deep savory, umami flavor.
Vinegar
Acts as the liquid base and preserving medium that extracts flavor from the solids.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and sharp savory flavor that mellows during aging.
Shallots
Contribute sharp aromatic flavor and body to the sauce.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth that supports the umami of the anchovies.

The step that matters

Cork and let it sit for 10 days. Time lets the vinegar extract flavor from the solids and mellows harsh raw notes of garlic and shallot. Sealing keeps the vinegar from evaporating, so the sauce stays concentrated and well-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.

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