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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 well 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, acidic base that keeps the sauce stable and tangy.
Walnut ketchup
Adds deep, savoury, umami flavour to the sauce.
Essence of anchovy
Contributes salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury, fermented umami notes that deepen the flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Supplies a sharp, lingering heat.
Shallots
Add mild aromatic sweetness and a gentle onion-like bite.

The step that matters

Shaking the bottle during the 14 days. Regular shaking keeps the ingredients mixed so flavours from the liquids and solids blend evenly as the sauce steeps. Keeping the bottle tightly sealed prevents the mixture from losing aroma and drying out during the long steep.

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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