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Sauce

Reading Sauce

A savory sauce made with walnut pickle, soy sauce, shallots, ginger, capsicums, mustard seed, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine walnut pickle and cold water in a large bowl.

  2. Add soy sauce, shallots, bruised ginger, capsicums, mustard seed, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, and essence of anchovy, then mix well.

  3. Let sit for at least 24 hours to allow flavors to meld.

Finish

  1. Strain 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. 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 flavor that the sauce is built around.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth and umami to the liquid base.
Shallots
Contribute mild onion-like sharpness that mellows during resting.
Whole ginger
Releases aromatic, slightly spicy notes into the liquid as it steeps.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that carries through the sauce.
Essence of anchovy
Boosts savory, umami depth without a distinct fishy taste.

The step that matters

Letting the sauce sit for at least 24 hours. Flavors from aromatics and seasonings need time to extract and blend into the liquid. Straining too early leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced, with the raw edges of shallots, ginger and mustard seed dominating.

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.

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