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Sauce

Shikaree Sauce for Wild Duck

A sweet and spicy sauce made with sugar, cayenne, wine, ketchup or anchovy essence, lemon juice, and butter, served over duck.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 for Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the pounded white sugar and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  2. Add the claret or port wine, ketchup or essence of anchovies, and lemon juice.

  3. Warm the mixture over low heat.

Serve with duck

  1. Score the breast of the duck and place a slice of butter on it.

  2. Pour the warm sauce over the duck before serving.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Port wine + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pounded white sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the heat of the cayenne pepper.
Cayenne pepper
Provides the sharp, lingering heat that defines the sauce.
Claret or port wine
Adds acidity and depth, with fruity and rich wine flavour.
Ketchup or essence of anchovies
Contributes savoury, tangy depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and sharpens the other flavours.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy finish on the duck.

The step that matters

Warm the mixture over low heat. Gentle heat warms the sauce evenly without scorching the sugar or driving off the wine's aromas. Too much heat can make the sugar bitter and the sauce harsh, so keep it warm rather than simmering hard.

“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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