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Scotch Sauce

A savory sauce made from anchovies, vinegar, wine, horseradish, onions, herbs, spices, and cochineal, simmered until the bones dissolve.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Scotch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovy base

  1. Chop the anchovies finely and steep them in vinegar for a week in a covered vessel.

  2. Combine the steeped anchovies with the claret or port wine.

Make the sauce

  1. Scrape the horseradish and chop the onions, parsley, and peach leaves.

  2. Add the horseradish, onions, parsley, peach leaves, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and black pepper to the anchovy mixture.

  3. Pour in ½ cup of the best vinegar and simmer slowly until the anchovy bones dissolve.

  4. Strain the sauce through a sieve and let it cool.

Bottle and seal

  1. Store in small bottles, sealing with melted rosin and leather tied over the corks.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the sauce to add deep savoury, salty flavour and body.
Vinegar
Steeps the anchovies and adds sharp acidity that carries the flavours and helps preserve the sauce.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat and sharpness.
Claret or port wine
Adds liquid and fruity depth to the sauce base.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury body as they cook down.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until the anchovy bones dissolve. Gentle simmering lets the small bones break down fully and soften into the liquid. A hard boil can scorch the sauce and leave the flavour harsh, and undissolved bones would remain gritty.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, port wine, horseradish, onion, parsley, lemon, thyme):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, port wine, horseradish, onion, parsley, lemon, thyme. 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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