Name: Shikaree Sauce
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons pounded white sugar; 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (or 1 teaspoon if less heat is preferred); ⅓ cup claret or port wine; ⅓ cup ketchup; Juice of 1 large lemon

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shikaree Sauce

Ingredients

2 teaspoons pounded white sugar
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (or 1 teaspoon if less heat is preferred)
⅓ cup claret or port wine
⅓ cup ketchup
Juice of 1 large lemon

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, mix the sugar and cayenne pepper.
Add the claret or port wine, ketchup, and lemon juice.
Warm the mixture over low heat.

Serve

Serve in a butter boat or pour over a scored duck breast with a slice of butter.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Port wine + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,804 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 liquid body and a fruity, rich depth of flavour to the sauce.
Ketchup: Contributes sweetness, acidity and thickness to the sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds bright acidity that balances the sweetness and heat.
Cayenne pepper: Provides the sauce's main heat and sharp, pungent flavour.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity and the heat of the cayenne.

“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.