Sweet and sour Worcestershire sauce is popular in England like no other. Gradually, albeit with a great delay, it becomes a familiar seasoning in Russian kitchens. And the question immediately arises: if it was not in the nearest supermarket, but you want the Caesar salad, is there anything you can substitute for the sauce from Britain?
The very name "Worcester" comes from the county of Worcestershire. According to the official version, in 1835, Lord Marcus Sandy, who returned from a Bengali expedition and missed oriental food, ordered local pharmacists to prepare a sauce according to a recipe brought from India. There were about 40 ingredients in the composition, and Lea & Perrins Pharmacy faithfully reproduced the recipe. However, according to legend, no one liked the result, and the container with the tasteless sauce was placed in a dark corner, where it stood for two years. What happened after two years of fermentation became the world famous Worcester sauce, which has been the main seasoning of British cuisine for more than a hundred years.
It is Worcester sauce that gives the Bloody Mary cocktail and the popular Caesar salad a unique taste.
What is Worcester sauce
Manufacturers are quite strict about keeping the secret of Worcestershire sauce, so the recipe itself is not publicly available, but lists of ingredients periodically appear. For example, one of them:
- tomato paste;
- walnut extract;
- a decoction of champignons;
- black pepper;
- dessert wine;
- tamarind;
- anchovies;
- curry powder;
- chilli;
- allspice;
- lemon;
- horseradish;
- celery;
- meat broth;
- vinegar;
- water;
- ginger;
- Bay leaf;
- nutmeg;
- salt;
- sugar;
- tarragon.
The trouble is that neither the proportions, nor the bookmarking order, nor the manufacturing procedure are really known. In addition, the presence of anchovies suggests that the sauce is prepared by fermentation, that is, long-term fermentation, like Thai fish sauce. These subtleties, as well as an impressive list of ingredients, make it very difficult to prepare a Wooster at home. However, there are adapted recipes that make homemade Worcestershire sauce a real, if challenging, experience.
Homemade Worcestershire Sauce Recipe
So you're determined to make Worcestershire sauce at home. To do this, you need onions, two cloves of garlic, anchovy, ground ginger, black peppercorns, a tablespoon of mustard seeds, salt, 1 gram of curry powder, cinnamon, ground red pepper, cloves, cardamom, vinegar, half a glass of sugar, 100 grams of soy sauce, tamarind.
Dip the onion in the vinegar solution and marinate for ten minutes, then chop finely. Chop the garlic, add a little vinegar to it. Place the garlic, onion, cinnamon, red and black pepper, ginger, cloves, and cardamom in a clean gauze bag. The bag needs to be tied.
In a saucepan, combine a teaspoon of acetic acid, soy sauce, sugar and tamarind. Dilute with a little water and boil for half an hour over low heat. In a separate cup, combine the finely chopped anchovy, curry, salt, add a little water and add to the saucepan. Simmer for about 15 more minutes.
Put the prepared spice bag in a glass container, pour over the sauce and close the lid. After the sauce has cooled, keep it in the refrigerator for a week, squeezing out a bag every day. After that, the bag can be removed, your pseudo Wester sauce is ready. You can marinate meat in it, add it to salads or cocktails.
In Britain, Worcestershire sauce is as familiar and popular as soy sauce in China or teriyaki in Japan.
Replacing Worcestershire sauce is so difficult and costly that it's much easier to just go to the supermarket and buy a couple of bottles of real sauce in reserve, especially since it can be stored for a very long time.
