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Sauce

Harvey Sauce

A fermented anchovy-based sauce with garlic, shallot, soy sauce, ketchup, cayenne pepper, vinegar, and optional carmine coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Harvey Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the anchovies into small pieces.

  2. Combine the anchovies, garlic, and shallot in a jar.

Steep and bottle

  1. Add soy sauce, walnut or mushroom ketchup, cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  2. If desired, add carmine coloring.

  3. Let the mixture soak for 10 to 12 days, stirring frequently.

  4. Strain through a flannel cloth, then bottle.

  5. Cork the bottles well and wax over the corks.

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. Shallot + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 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
Break down during soaking to add deep savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Vinegar
Acts as the main liquid and extracts flavor from the solids while adding sharp acidity.
Garlic
Releases pungent aromatic compounds into the vinegar during the long soak.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth that supports the fish flavor.
Walnut or mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savory, umami flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Let the mixture soak for 10 to 12 days, stirring frequently.. Flavor is extracted slowly from the solids into the acidic vinegar, so a short soak gives a weak, harsh sauce. Frequent stirring keeps the solids in contact with the liquid.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, shallot, sauce, pepper, 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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