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Sauce

Worcestershire Sauce, No. 2

A fermented sauce made from cayenne pepper, powdered cloves, anchovies, onions, walnut ketchup, and cider or wine 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 ↓

Worcestershire Sauce, No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Combine all ingredients in a stone jar.

  2. Place the jar in a kettle of water and heat until scalding hot.

  3. Cover the jar tightly and let it stand for 2 days.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture and bottle it, corking tightly.

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. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider or wine vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity and extracts flavour from the solids while preserving the sauce.
Anchovies
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour that rounds out the sauce.
Onions
Contribute aromatic sweetness and body as their flavour steeps into the vinegar.
Cayenne pepper
Supplies the sharp, lingering heat.
Powdered cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma.
Walnut catsup
Adds dark, savoury depth and richness.

The step that matters

Standing covered for 2 days. The vinegar slowly draws flavour out of the onions, anchovies and spices over time. Keeping the jar tightly covered stops the vinegar evaporating and the aromas escaping, so the flavours blend fully before straining.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, walnut, cider. 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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