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Sauce

Worcester Sauce

A fermented sauce made from vinegar, walnut ketchup, anchovy essence, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, shallots, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Worcester Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bottle and seal it tightly.

  2. Shake the bottle 3 to 4 times daily for about 14 days.

Strain and store

  1. After 14 days, strain the mixture into small bottles and seal them tightly.

  2. Store the bottles in a cool, dry place.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 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. Pepper + shallottop 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

Brown vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that carries the sauce's savory and tangy flavors.
Walnut ketchup
Adds deep, savory umami flavor and a dark color to the sauce.
Essence of anchovy
Contributes concentrated savory, salty depth characteristic of fermented fish flavor.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, fermented umami depth that rounds out the savory base.
Shallots
Add mild sharp aromatic flavor that infuses into the liquid during long steeping.

The step that matters

Sealing and steeping for 14 days. The bottle must be sealed tightly and shaken regularly so the shallots and other ingredients steep evenly and flavors blend. Opening it early or leaving it unshaken leaves the flavors harsh and unmellowed.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ketchup, anchovy, sauce, pepper, shallot. 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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