sauces-and-spicery

An old (16th Cent) sauce made from herrings. The form of the sauce is now lost, but it may have been similar to the Roman 'garum', a fermented fish sauce.

Bread sauce with crushed garlic and pepper. A sauce for beef. Known only from 15th Century manuscripts.

Dried anchovies, powdered with hot spices "It is a very savoury relish, sprinkled on bread and butter for a sandwich" (Eaton 1822).

Anchovies stewed in stock and butter until dissolved (Glasse 1747, Eaton 1822, etc)

Pureed apple, slightly sweetened if necessary. Accompanies roast pork and light meats (Soyer 1845, etc)

Lemon water thickened with arrowroot. Wine, spices etc. may be added. A sauce for dry puddings (Mrs.B, etc)

Pale stock sauce with pulped asparagus, "if not a very good colour, use a little spinach green. This sauce should be rather sweet." (Mrs.B)

Bastard Gravy appears in several medieval texts as a sauce for different dishes, including oysters, baked meat or "wheder that thou wolt" (Austin 1440). The ety...

A sauce made with the sweet Spanish 'Bastardo' wine (Huswife 1594, etc)

Beer with brown sugar, reduced. A sauce for puddings.

Beer and butter, a sauce for steaks.

Grated horseradish with mustard, sugar and vinegar, for hot or cold roast beef (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B).

The original Bisto, developed by in 1908 by Mr Roberts and Mr Patterson of the Cerebos salt company, and still available, was not an instant gravy mix but a neu...

English 'black butter' was originally a thick preserve made from fruit served as an accompaniment.

Butter, sugar and brandy blended together and served cold with hot rich puddings, especially Christmas Pudding

A sauce for fish containing wine, stock, ginger and sugar (Cury 1390, Wright 1857). The word may be related to 'braising'.

Stale white bread pureed with hot milk, usually infused with onion, bay and cloves. Served hot with poultry.

A herb and spice sauce thickened with bread. The dish is known at least since the Middle English romance, the 14th Century 'Lay of Havelok the Dane', and is ref...

Worcester sauce, vinegar, mustard and butter, served hot (White 1932)

A cold, thick, dark, table pouring sauce of finely pureed fruit, vinegar and sharp spices.

A basting mixture for joints, consisting of Worcester Sauce, anchovy essence, mustard and finely chopped onion (Hutchins 1967)

Cream with caramel (Walsh 1859). Compare with Cambridge Cream

Melted butter, with water or milk to form an emulsion, reduced and seasoned. This is the 'melted butter' sauce of Georgian and Edwardian cookery. Compare with N...

Thickened milk sauce coloured and flavoured with part caramelised brown sugar or golden syrup.

Cabbage, boiled then stewed in butter. A dressing for goose (Glasse 1747)

A form of shallot-based store sauce made at the many cab driver's shelters in the days of Hansoms and Growlers. 'Food in England' by Dorothy Hartley (Hartley 19...

Hard-boiled eggs, either whole or yolks only, pureed with oil, anchovies, herbs (such as chervil, tarragon, chives, mustard, capers, parsley), a little Cayenne ...

Bread sauce with cinnamon, ginger and mustard. A sauce for quail (Noble Boke 1480)

Vinegar, strongly flavoured with, for instance, garlic, cayenne, soy and walnut ketchup. (Rundell 1807, Mrs.B)

Chopped capers in thickened butter. A sauce for fish or sheep meat (Soyer 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

Chopped shallots with vinegar, broth and pepper, a sauce for mutton (Rundell 1807, Eaton 1822, Glasse 1747, Walsh 1859, etc)

A form of Chilli Vinegar (Mrs.B)

General term for flavoured (herb, spice etc) gravies.

A sauce made from the offal and giblets of a fowl. A giblet gravy. Most associated with swan, but also used with other birds.

Minced, boiled chervil leaves with butter (Eaton 1822).

Pureed chestnuts with stock, cream and seasonings. Repeatedly given as an acompaniment for poultry since the early 19th Century.

Cider simmered with meat juices and herbs. Served with meats.

Cider reduced with sugar and butter whisked in. Served with puddings.

This term appears regularly in ancient cookbooks including Cury 1390, Liber Cure 1430, Austin 1440 and appears to indicate either some type of sauce or a servin...

Cockles in their liquor, with spicings. (Eaton 1822).

Cowslips boiled with sugar (Moxon 1764)

Mashed crab with butter, hot. A sauce for fish (Mrs.B)

Creamed cucumber in white sauce, for fish and white meats, or in stock for dark meats (Soyer 1845, Acton 1845, etc)

Gravy flavoured with red wine, currant jelly and mustard.

Creamed cold sauce of butter with rum, Barbados sugar and spices. Served with puddings or oatcakes. (British Food Trust, etc).

An English Piquant Sauce sauce of redcurrants, or redcurrant jelly, port or other red wine, with orange peel, vinegar, and spices such as mustard, pepper, ginge...

Currants boiled with wine, butter and breadcrumb (Eaton 1822, Walsh 1859, etc)

A mild curry sauce, typically of minced and fried onion, pureed, diluted with water and thickened with flour, salted and mildly spiced with Madras curry powder.

Much, probably most, of the custard consumed in England today is not the traditional form made with eggs, but is one of various proprietary brands supplied as p...

Any of a variety of sauces made hot with, usually, Cayenne.

Plain sauce such as English butter sauce with anchovy essence and sherry (Hutchins 1967, etc)

Parsley and dry toast beaten with vinegar, salt and pepper.

Very fine milled husk-free mustard flour, produced by a process developed c1720 by Mrs. Clements of Durham, and favoured by King George I. Although now lost, th...

Thin pouring sauce of milk or cream, egg yolks and sugar heated until thick, but neither boiled nor allowed to set (Soyer 1845, Mrs.B, etc). While the French im...

Diced hard-boiled egg in melted butter sauce. A sauce for fish and light meats (Soyer 1845, Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, etc)

Elderberry liquor with sugar, butter and spices. A sauce for goose.

Walnut and mushroom ketchup, soy, port wine, white pepper, shallots, cayenne and cloves in vinegar. A sauce for steaks etc (Acton 1845, Mrs.B)

Hard boiled yolks beaten with orange-water, sugar and butter, "force it through a fine strainer full of little holes onto a plate" (Glasse 1747, Walsh 1859, Mrs...

Chopped fennel in thickened butter, a sauce for oily fish such as mackerel (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, Walsh 1859)

Blackberries, strawberries or raspberries boiled down with sugar. An accompaniment for steamed puddings.

A form of very thick sauce, often made with bread, with spices such as galyngale, and sometimes wine added. Served with meat and fish.

Boiled thin slices of celery with mace, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, thickened with flour and butter. "Lemon pickle or lemon juice may be added to it." (Eaton 1822...

A milk-and-garlic sauce, especially for goose (Liber Cure 1430, Austin 1440)

Trade name of a very salty anchovy paste with butter, herbs and spices made as 'Patum Peperium Gentleman's Relish' since 1828. It is now produced by Elsenham Fo...

Escoffier gives Gloucester Sauce as mayonnaise with sour cream and Worcester sauce. But (with thanks to our correspondent Jamie Murray Wells) there are also bot...

Gooseberry puree, seeds removed, sweetened. A sauce for fish, especially mackerel, and pale meats (Acton 1845, Walsh 1859, etc)

A pouring sauce made from the fat and juices which exude from meat in cooking, thickened slightly if need be, as a dressing for the meat. That the chief sauce i...

Finely chopped spinach with other green herbs such as mint, parsley and sage mixed into butter and formed into balls. Served as an accompaniment to roast meat.

Sorrel juice with wine, berries, butter, sugar. A sauce for goose or duck. (Eaton 1822, etc)

Sorrel, butter, and gooseberry (Moxon 1764)

Pouring sauce for meat made from green herbs such as spinach and tansy or sorrel, commonly with verjuice and bread as a thickener. Known since the 1400's (Moxon...

Grated white bread pounded with vinegar and ground ginger (Cury 1390)

A cold dessert sauce made by creaming butter and sugar with rum, brandy, whiskey, vanilla or other flavouring. Brandy Butter is one form of Hard Sauce.

An English Piquant Sauce sauce.

An English Piquant Sauce sauce. A brown liquid sauce manufactured in Sheffield by the family business established by Mr Henry Henderson in 1881 and sold in 1910...

Clear jelly, typically crab-apple, flavoured with herbs such as tarragon, thyme or sage.

Vinegar stored with whole herb sprigs- mint, rosemary, sage etc.

Chopped shallots stewed in wine and meat juices with thyme, honey and lemon. Finished with cream. A sauce for duck.

Mustard flour made up with honey.

Finely grated horseradish root made into a creamy sauce with, for instance, cream and pounded breadcrumbs. Served with roast beef or smoked fish.

Jam reduced with water and boiled, a sauce for puddings.

A product called 'Kentish Sauce' is known from references in newspaper advertisements from the mid-19thCentury as a bottled sauce of unknown composition "A capi...

Powdered whole mustard seeds mixed with Sherry and sugar (Digby 1669).

An English Piquant Sauce sauce. There have been several products of this name, from Broome's, Mackrell's and Picton & Hattons (all in Liverpool) in the 1850's t...

Juice pressed from unripe salted walnuts, with pounded shallots, soy, cayenne and garlic in vinegar and Port. A sauce for; "every description of Fish, Game, Wil...

Sauce of minced rabbit or fowl liver with parsley and melted butter.

Vinegar containing hot chillies, a London speciality served with Pie and Mash or Eels, known at least since the late 18Cent.

Butter pounded with anchovies and cooked parsley, a spread for toast. Reported in 'Good Things in England' by Florence White (White 1932)

Most traditionally, in England, vinegar is made by malting barley, in which diastaisic enzymes make the starch in the grain turn to maltose, then using yeast to...

Sweet white sauce flavoured with mint and often coloured very bright green. An accompaniment for School Dinner puddings such as a Chocolate Concrete.

Light-consistency jelly with chopped mint. Served with lamb as an alternative to Mint Sauce

Finely chopped mint leaves in sweetened vinegar. Served with lamb.

Black pepper, allspice, salt, horseradish, pickled shallots all pounded in liquor of mushroom ketchup or walnut pickle.

A gravy with herbs, anchovy, onion, mushroom and red wine "pour the sauce into the pie. This serves for mutton, lamb, veal, or beef pies" (Eaton 1822).

An English Piquant Sauce sauce.

There is no single receipt. Bradley 1728 has a long discussion.

Concentrated mushroom broth with vinegar and spices.

Savoury white sauce with chopped mushrooms (Mrs.B, etc)

English table mustard is properly made only from winnowed flour of mustard, usually the yellow mustard (Sinapis hirta) but sometimes with an admixture of brown ...

White sauce strongly flavoured with mustard. Commonly now a sauce for pork, it is recommeded for use with fish at least since 'The Good Huswifes Jewel for the K...

The 10% of chips which, according to Sarson's, don't get their vinegar are likely to be sharpened with the 'non-brewed condiment' almost universal in northern c...

Water boiled with butter and shaken until emulsified. A simplified version of English Butter Sauce.

The juice of an onion stirred into butter and fried until brown.

Onions, fried in fat until dark, pureed, diluted with water, seasoned with salt and pepper and thickened.

Meat gravy containing shredded, fried, onions.

Sauce of sliced onion, sometimes with other vegetables, browned. (Eaton 1822).

Fried white onions boiled in stock, reduced and pureed.

Chopped white onions boiled with milk and bay.

Orange juice and zest in thickened stock with wine.

Gravy with orange, a sauce for goose and game (Acton 1845, Kitchiner 1845, Mrs.B).

Although oranges have only rarely been grown in England, orange sauce, especially as an accompaniment to light meats such as poultry or veal, is known at least ...

Brown sugar with mustard, salt, pepper, oil and vinegar. A sauce for brawn, specifically Oxford Brawn, or game (Acton 1845).

A fruit-based cold table sauce, similar to Cumberland Sauce, but without the citrus peel.

A sauce for meat or fish. The liquor from oysters boiled with flavourings which might include soy, ketchup or horseradish. Butter and flour to thicken, the oyst...

Melted Butter with finely chopped parsley, served hot. Now commonly an accompaniment for fish, formerly for veal.

Chopped parsley with vinegar, breadcrumbs and salt (Austin 1440)

Now almost always a white sauce with finely-chopped parsley, served with fish or white meats.

Fruit jelly, most commonly apple, with chopped parsley mixed-in.

The reduced water in which dried peas have been boiled, used as a soup or gravy.

A hot pouring sauce of coloured sweet white sauce, most commonly associated with school puddings such as Chocolate Concrete.

Plums boiled down in stock. Served with mutton.

Elderberry juice, reduced with sweet spices (mace, ginger, pepper, cloves) and shallot. Stored to mature and used cold, a sauce for fish (Rundell 1807, Acton 18...

Minced onion with vinegar, pepper and salt. Eaton 1822 adds chopped parsley, Francatelli 1846 fries the onions first and adds wine.

Sauce based on chopped shallots with vinegar and stock, "a proper sauce for turkey, or any other sort of white fowls." (Glasse 1747, Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822).

Punch (eg, brandy, rum, orange) thickened with butter and flour (Acton 1845, etc)

A basting mixture for joints of Port, shallots, anchovy and pepper. Said by Hutchins 1967 to date from the reign of William and Mary.

Walnut pickle, mushroom pickle, anchovy and hot pepper (Eaton 1822)

Raisins, butter and spices boiled in sugar syrup. An accompaniment for roast meat.

A very thick spiced sauce, typically for fish, made of dried fruit boiled in wine (Cury 1390, Austin 1440, AW 1591)

The leading Piquant Sauce of the Victorian era. Originally a dissolved-fish sauce, but later made with other materials. Cocks's Reading Sauce seems to have been...

Jelly, or jam, made from semi-ripe bilberry fruits. Served with goose.

Served with game and roast meat (Soyer 1845, Acton 1845, etc)

Redcurrants boiled with sugar to a soft jam. An accompaniment for meats.

Fried minced onion with stock, mustard and sugar (Eaton 1822, etc). 'Robert Sauce' was also nautical slang for a rest or nap.

Clear sweet jelly, usually apple, with rosemary mixed-in. A sauce for game.

Butter mixed with rum and icing sugar, an accompaniment for Christmas pudding and other rich deserts.

Hot cream with sack, sugar, nutmeg and "strong water" (WM 1658)

Apple, or similar clear jelly, with chopped sage. An accompaniment for meats.

A creamy, cold, yellow condiment sauce, based on pureed cooked egg in a cream with vinegar and spices. Similar in appearance to mayonnaise, but with a more pron...

Almond milk boiled with sweet spices. It isn't clear if 'sardeyne' is 'sardine'.

A sharply-flavoured sauce for fowl, game and read meat. Eaton 1822 has simply wine vinegar boiled with sugar. Soyer 1845 has chopped onions with chilli vinegar,...

A hot or cold pouring sauce based on redcurrant jelly, Worcester sauce, red wine, mustard and lemon, thickened with either flour or minced onion. Known only sin...

Known at least since 1760 as a sauce for salmon.

An English Piquant Sauce sauce.

A sweet, snow-like, froth as an accompaniment to sweet deserts. Appears repeatedly in cookbooks until the end of the 19th Century.

Now usually cider with thickened cream. A sauce for pale meats.

Chopped sorrel leaves, wilted in butter, cream added. An accompaniment to fish and lamb (Mollard 1802, Eaton 1822, etc)

Claret boiled with cinnamon, sugar and breadcrumbs. "These are the sweet Sauces used for Hare, and all other Venison" (Bradley 1728).

Sugar syrup of 'Gilliflowers' - a name for cloves, or, more likely here, for the flowers of the similarly flavoured Dianthus Caryophyllus, a wild carnation (Mox...

A bottled store sauce advertised in the 1850s. See also; Somerset Sauce

A sauce for game, eg. hare, made from the blood of the game with spices and ale, thickened with bread (Austin 1440)

Mayonnaise with chopped capers, gherkin and vinegar. A sauce for fish.

Very strong mustard with grated horseradish.

Clear sweet jelly, usually apple, with thyme mixed-in. A sauce for game.

Tomato pulp, seasoned and slightly reduced.

Seed-free tomato puree reduced with sugar, salt and a slight admixture of spices such as celery and garlic.

General term for table sauces, especially jellies, to accompany roast meats.

Cream frothed with egg whites, rosewater and yolks added and cooked to a custard. Served over fruit (Wooley 1672).

Strong white gravy with chopped celery, anchovies, lemon peel, cream, mace, wine (Moxon 1764)

Pureed turnip in stock (Eaton 1822).

The acid juice of green or unripe grapes, crab-apples, or other sour fruit, used in cooking or as a table condiment in much the same way as vinegar. It appears ...

Violet flowers boiled with sugar syrup. Known at least since AW 1591.

Green walnuts, pressed or crushed, steeped several days in vinegar, then boiled down with spices. A commonplace addition to gravies during the 18th and 19th Cen...

Finely chopped watercress in a white sauce. For strongly-flavoured fish such as salmon.

Milk thickened with wheat or corn flour or with breadcrumb. Sweetened for sweet dishes, or pepper and salt for pale meats etc.

This is the 'Pudding Sauce' of 18th and 19th Century cookery.

(Worcester Sauce or Worcestershire Sauce)

An English Piquant Sauce sauce, of the 19th century, for service with beef.

Treacle and vinegar, with a little black pepper, "eat the sauce with lettuces shred small" (Acton 1845)

An English Piquant Sauce sauce based on pureed pickled fruits (dates &c) rather than the rotted fish of Worcestershire sauce or Harvey's or the spiced vineg...

Hot Port wine sauce (Port, chopped shallots and thyme in gravy) with redcurrant jelly and orange peel. Not known in this form before Hutchins 1967, though a sau...