Skip to main content
Main

Reading Sauce

A fermented walnut pickle sauce flavored with soy, anchovy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Reading Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shallots

  1. Peel and finely chop the shallots.

  2. Place the shallots in a fireproof jar with the strained walnut liquor.

  3. Simmer gently until reduced.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the water, soy sauce, ginger, capsicums, mustard seed, cayenne, and essence of anchovy in a fireproof jar.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 1 hour.

  3. Mix the contents of both jars.

  4. Continue slow cooking for another 30 minutes.

Rest and bottle

  1. Cover the jar.

  2. Let it sit in a cool place overnight.

  3. Add the bay leaves.

  4. Replace the cover.

  5. Let it sit undisturbed for 7 days.

  6. Strain the liquid into small bottles.

  7. Store for use.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Capsicum + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + capsicumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnut pickle
Provides the dark, concentrated base flavour of the sauce.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth and umami to the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute mild sweetness and aromatic onion-like flavour as they cook down.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that mellows during long cooking.
Cayenne pepper
Supplies heat and sharpness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering and the long rest. Slow simmering reduces the liquid and concentrates flavours, while the extended covered rest lets the ingredients mellow and blend. Lifting the cover or rushing the rest can leave the sauce harsh and thin.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, sauce, shallot, capsicum, mustard, pepper, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, sauce, shallot, capsicum, mustard, pepper, anchovy. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes