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Sauce

Universal Sauces

A sauce made from black pepper, allspice, sea salt, shallot, mushroom ketchup, port wine, and chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Universal Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine black pepper, pounded allspice, coarse sea salt, minced shallot, mushroom ketchup, port wine, and chili vinegar in a bottle.

  2. Let the mixture sit in a warm place (about 90°F or 32°C) for 24 hours.

  3. After 24 hours, let it stand for a week.

  4. Strain the mixture and bottle it.

Serve

  1. Use a spoonful mixed with gravy for cutlets.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Black pepper
Provides sharp, pungent heat that gives the sauce its characteristic bite.
Pounded allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the sauce's flavour.
Minced shallot
Contributes savoury, mildly sweet allium flavour that deepens during steeping.
Mushroom ketchup
Supplies concentrated umami and savoury depth as the base liquid.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that brightens and preserves the sauce.

The step that matters

Straining and bottling after the long steep. The week-long rest lets the flavours meld and the solids soften, so the liquid carries most of the taste. Straining removes the pieces that would otherwise keep extracting flavour and cloud the sauce, so the finished sauce stays clear and consistent in the bottle.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, shallot, mushroom, ketchup, port wine, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, shallot, mushroom, ketchup, port wine, vinegar. 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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