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Harvey Sauce

A vinegar-based sauce with anchovies, garlic, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Harvey Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine all ingredients in an earthenware jar.

  2. Cover the jar tightly and let the mixture sit for 1 month, stirring 2 or 3 times daily.

Bottle and store

  1. After 1 month, strain the mixture into small bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles securely and store or use.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Malt vinegar
Provides the acidic base that carries the flavours and helps preserve the sauce.
Anchovies
Add salty, savoury depth that builds umami over the long steep.
Mushroom or walnut vinegar
Adds a darker, earthy acidity that rounds out the sharpness of the malt vinegar.
Cayenne pepper
Supplies heat and pungency that mellows and blends during the steeping.
Indian soy
Contributes salt and savoury, fermented richness.

The step that matters

Covering and stirring the steep. The month-long steep is what extracts and blends flavours from the solids into the liquid. Keeping the jar tightly covered limits evaporation and contamination, while regular stirring prevents solids settling and ensures even extraction throughout the mixture.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (malt, vinegar, mushroom, garlic, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against malt, vinegar, mushroom, garlic, pepper. 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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