All about Worcestershire sauce. What can replace Worcestershire sauce and how to cook it at home Worcester sauce where

Often it is the sauce that determines the taste of the future dish. Incorrectly selected or cooked, it can spoil the food or add zest to it, thereby turning a salad or meat into a real culinary masterpiece.

What is Worcestershire Sauce?

A spicy, sweet and sour taste that gives food an exquisite taste and a slight piquancy are the distinctive qualities that a traditional English sauce has.

It is very concentrated, so you need to add no more than 2-3 drops to the dish. This will be enough for it to sparkle with new flavors. It may seem that Worcestershire sauce is similar to soy sauce. In fact, its taste is richer and more refined, and according to the original recipe, it does not contain soy.

Origin story

Worcestershire sauce owes its appearance to an English lord named Marques Sandys from Worcestershire. At the beginning of the 19th century, he was on a diplomatic trip to India and brought back an approximate recipe for the sauce he loved. The Lord gave the task to two pharmaceutical chemists to reproduce the recipe they liked.

Chemists John Lee and William Perrins made a sauce that tasted so terrible that the lord refused to pay for it. But by pure chance, the pharmacists did not throw it away, and it ended up in a dark and cool basement. It took about a year when the chemists discovered the sauce they had prepared. And before throwing it away, we decided to taste it. Favorable conditions and time did their job. The sauce became so tasty that Lee and Perrins patented its production.

Thus, in 1838, the industrial production of the product was launched with the name "Worchester Sauce" after the same name of the place where it was discovered. At the same time, Lee and Perrins founded the only real Worcestershire sauce company in England.

Worcestershire sauce: composition

The content of the sauce is truly unique. It contains over 20 ingredients, many of which are completely incompatible with each other. However, all of them under certain conditions give a unique taste.

The composition of the sauce necessarily contains fish (as a rule, these are anchovies), sugar and special malt vinegar. It is obligatory to add aspic meat extract, onion, garlic and lemon, chili, black and ground allspice, curry, tamarind, ginger, celery, horseradish, asafoetida, tarragon, nutmeg, molasses, corn syrup, as well as water and salt. But the desired result cannot be achieved without aging in oak barrels. Only after a certain time the sauce acquires its spicy sweet and sour taste.

Recipe for cooking at home

Real Worcestershire sauce is made directly in England. But we also have it for sale. If you can’t find it in the shops of the city, then you can try to cook the dish yourself. The real sauce recipe is kept in the strictest confidence, but made at home, it almost repeats the original taste.

To prepare Worcestershire sauce, you need to prepare the following ingredients:

anchovy fillet - 1 pc.;
onions - 1 pc.;
garlic - 2 cloves;
dry ginger - 1 teaspoon;
table vinegar 6% - 400 ml;
soy sauce - 100 ml;
water - 200 ml;
sugar - 200 g;
tamarind pulp paste - 50 g;
mustard seeds - 3 tablespoons;
salt - 3 tablespoons;
ground allspice - 1 teaspoon;
ground cloves - 1 teaspoon;
red pepper - a pinch;
cardamom - a pinch;
curry - a pinch;
cinnamon - a pinch.

Spices play a big role in the recipe. If even one ingredient is left out, then it will no longer be possible to recreate the exquisite taste that Worcestershire sauce has. The recipe for cooking consists of several stages.

First you need to pickle the onion. To do this, dilute 2 tablespoons of vinegar in 100 ml of water and place a finely chopped onion in the resulting solution for 30 minutes.
Next, you should prepare a piece of gauze fabric and fold it 8-10 layers to make a rectangle measuring 10x15 cm. Place pickled onions, finely chopped garlic, ginger, red pepper, ground allspice, cloves, mustard, cardamom and cinnamon inside.
From gauze with prepared ingredients, form a bag and tie it tightly with a thick, harsh thread.
Take a 3 liter saucepan and place the tamarind paste, sugar, remaining vinegar, soy sauce and the formed knot into it. Put on the stove, let it boil, and then cook for 30 minutes over low heat.
Separately, dissolve salt in 100 ml of water, add curry and chopped anchovy. Add the resulting solution to the pan, boil for 5 minutes and remove from heat.
Allow the saucepan to cool completely and then pour the contents into a glass jar. A gauze knot should also be placed there. Close the jar with a lid and refrigerate for 10 days.
Every day for the specified time, the gauze bundle with spices should be squeezed out with clean hands, and the contents of the jar should be mixed.
After 10 days, Worcestershire sauce will be ready. Now it needs to be bottled and used to prepare culinary masterpieces.

What recipes are used?

There are many dishes that traditionally use exquisite English sauce. Some of them are already associated with its name. However, the concentrated sweet and sour taste does not allow the use of Worcestershire sauce in unlimited quantities. What do they eat it with?

You can't make a real Caesar salad without Worcestershire sauce. In addition, it is an integral component of the Bloody Mary cocktail. Classic English roast beef, traditional scrambled eggs with bacon, marinating fish and meat - this is just a small part of its scope. Just a couple of drops of sauce will be enough to give the dish a special spicy taste.

Worcestershire sauce alternative

Throughout its existence, people have sought to find a replacement for Worcestershire sauce. This is primarily due to the rather high price for it, as well as the complex and not completely known recipe for cooking at home. What is the alternative for a product called Worcestershire sauce? What to replace it with?

In fact, it is only the combination of such incompatible products and certain aging conditions that make the sauce taste special. Someone is trying to use soy sauce as a substitute. But still, it’s better not to try to find an alternative, but to purchase an original product, especially since you need quite a bit to add it to a dish, and the cost will pay off with the excellent taste of a culinary masterpiece.

How to choose a real sauce?

It should be noted that unscrupulous manufacturers often try to sell soy or other sauces similar in consistency and color under the guise of the original product. In order not to run into a fake, it should be remembered that real Worcestershire sauce is produced only in England.

The shelf life of the product in a closed bottle is 2 years, and after opening - only 2 months.

Worcestershire sauce (Worchester) is a sweet and sour fermented English sauce, named after the county of Worcestershire. It is a spicy, highly concentrated seasoning that resembles a thick liquid, the recipe for which is kept in the strictest confidence. The sauce is served with boiled and fried fish, stews, scrambled eggs, roast beef, stew. Neither the Bloody Mary cocktail nor the Caesar salad can do without it.

Interestingly, Worcestershire sauce stimulates appetite, improves metabolism. In addition, it is added to herbal drinks to treat impotence, mental anguish, and hangovers.

History of occurrence

The original ingredients of the English sauce were brought in the form of spices from India in the 19th century. After delivering the spices, Lord Marcus Sandy persuaded the local grocers to prepare a mixture of them according to an individually invented recipe. However, the partners doubted the result, because according to the data provided, the dish included 25 ingredients, most of which were not grown in England. When chemical grocers mixed the ingredients, they found that the mixture had a fishy smell and a sharp, vinegary taste that discouraged eating. However, ironically, by accident or not, the barrel of sauce ended up in the basement, where it lay for 2 years. When it was opened, to the surprise of the culinary experts, there was a spicy spice in front of them with an excellent taste and mild aroma. As a result of the amazing discovery, the product began to be produced for sale on an industrial scale.

Composition and nutritional value

100 ml of sauce contains 78 kcal 19.5 g. According to the classic version of the recipe, the composition of the traditional British liquid seasoning includes: curry, table vinegar, onion, tarragon, a mixture of peppers, tamarind, asafoetida, aspic,. Despite the well-known exact composition of the sauce, culinary specialists to this day have not been able to repeat its original taste.

Interestingly, a real Worcestershire before bottling and going on sale, aged in the basement for 3-4 years in oak barrels. It enhances its taste. Due to the concentrated composition, the consumption of the sauce is minimal, which makes it economical to use. To improve the taste of the dish, just 3-5 drops of the product are enough.

The classic cooking

Worcestershire sauce, with all the desire, culinary skill and the accuracy of the choice of the original ingredients, cannot be made at home on your own. However, it is quite possible to prepare a seasoning that resembles an English concentrate. It should be borne in mind that this is a long, laborious process that takes 2 weeks.

Ingredients:

onion - 1 head;
vinegar - 400 ml;
anchovies - 2 pcs;
cardamom, curry, red pepper - 2.5 g each;
soy sauce, sugar - 100 ml each;
tamarind - 50 g;
salt, mustard seeds - 45 g each;
allspice - 10 pcs;
ginger - 1 root;
garlic - 2 cloves;
cinnamon - 2 sticks;
cloves - 5 g.

Cooking steps:

Peel the garlic, sprinkle with vinegar, chop.
Separate the onion from the husk, marinate for 2 minutes.
Cloves, peppers, ginger, garlic and onions are placed in a gauze bag, tightly tied.
Mix, vinegar and water, pour into a saucepan, add chopped tamarind, fall asleep. Place a bag in the spicy mixture, boil for 30 minutes over low heat.
Chop anchovy fillets, salt, combine with curry, add to vinegar-soy solution.
After half an hour, turn off the heat, remove the bag into a glass jar, where to drain the contents of the pan, leave to cool, then place in the refrigerator. Every day, take out gauze with spices and squeeze the sauce a little. Do this procedure for 14 days. After 2 weeks, discard the bag, and pour the finished homemade Worcester into glass bottles and store in the refrigerator.

There is another recipe for making homemade English sauce, which involves using lemon juice instead of vinegar, and sprats instead of anchovy.

Currently, the most popular dish that has gained wide popularity among consumers is Caesar salad. The secret of its excellent taste lies in the use of a special dressing, which, in the original version, necessarily includes Worcestershire. What can you substitute for Worcestershire sauce? A mixture of Thai fish sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Where to add and what to eat

The original Worcestershire sauce is produced exclusively under the Lea & Perrins brand. This is the only recipe owner who first created it. The Lea&Perrins brand is currently owned by the Heinz Company. Worchester analogues are also produced by other companies (“Cajun Power” and “French’s”) according to an approximate recipe, based on Jamaican allspice, Madagascar cloves, vinegar, anchovies, garlic, English red onion, asafoetida, tamarind. However, the taste of such a product differs from the original.

In China, Worcester is used to prepare marinades for vegetables, meat, fish, mushrooms, Greece - Greek salad, Spain - cold appetizers, Central America and Canada - legumes, hamburgers.

Residents of Foggy Albion use sauce as a condiment for:

boiled, stewed, fried vegetables and mushrooms;
meat dishes (stew, roast beef);
and cheese dishes (salty pastries);
fried, boiled fish;
hot appetizers (bacon with scrambled eggs);
croutons, sandwiches.

Classic Worcestershire sauce is not usually served with juices, sweet pastries, desserts and fruits.

Benefit and harm

At present, due to the secrecy of the recipe, the therapeutic effect of the use of the product has not been fully determined. At the same time, its chemical composition is known, which is represented by,. Worcestershire sauce increases the body's resistance to stress, improves the functioning of the digestive system, normalizes metabolism, increases the number of red blood cells in the blood, stimulates the functioning of the thyroid gland, protects the heart from strokes, heart attacks, stimulates appetite.

Seasoning has a sedative effect on the body. It relieves headaches, normalizes sleep, relieves fatigue and irritation. In addition, the product relieves tension, tissue swelling, PMS, muscle spasms, helps with constipation, increases blood flow in the vessels.

Worcester is contraindicated in case of increased acidity of the stomach, allergies to seafood, obesity, diabetes, ulcers and gastritis. Store-bought sauce should be stored in a dark, cool place for no more than 1 year, and self-made “homemade” sauce - 4 days. The Worcester product is made not only in England, it is produced in North America, Japan, Brazil, Canada, USA, Australia.

Interestingly, he acquired a second home in China, which is why he received the unspoken name - Shanghai sauce. In order not to purchase a fake, you should carefully read the composition of the product prescribed on the label. The presence indicates the falsification of the goods. In a real Worcester, this ingredient should not be.

Conclusion

Worcestershire sauce is a traditional liquid seasoning of English origin, served with meat, fish and vegetable dishes. It is a spicy, canned product made with over 20 ingredients. In Anglo-Saxon cuisine, it plays the role of soy sauce at the same time. Due to the rich sweet and sour taste, it diversifies the gastronomic bouquet of any dish. For filling one portion, as a rule, only 3 drops are enough.

This sauce is available under two brands "Lea & Perrins" and "Heinz". It is futile to try to prepare the original yourself. This is impossible. The technology and recipe for the production of Worcester are kept in the strictest confidence for more than two centuries. The finished product is subject to noble aging (ripening) under conditions specially created in the cellars of the Lea & Perrins factory. Due to this, the taste of the sauce softens, it acquires a characteristic sourness.

Remember, any non-original recipes are nothing more than another imitation of the product. English concentrate is not recommended to be used on an ongoing basis for more than 10 drops per dose, otherwise you can cause an exacerbation of gastrointestinal diseases, get heartburn. In moderation, the product stimulates the secretion of the glands of the digestive tract, normalizes the state of the nervous system, relieves foci of pain, and relieves spasms.

Worcestershire sauce is perhaps one of the most famous in the world, it came to us from the UK. Thick and rich, it has gained millions of fans around the world and has found its place in the cuisines of different nations. It is added to salads, soups, meat dishes and even drinks. His recipe remains a closely guarded secret to this day.

A bit of history

As is the case with many other dishes, the origin of Worcestershire sauce is surrounded by certain legends. To date, there are at least two theories of its invention.

The most common version says that India should be thanked for the recipe for Worcestershire sauce. It was from this country that Lord Marques Sandys once returned. After the spicy Indian cuisine, the food of his native Britain seemed incredibly bland to him. Fortunately, the lord brought with him a recipe for one of the many Indian sauces. With this recipe, he turned to the British pharmacists Lee and Perrins. Apothecaries did not refuse the lord, and created a sauce for him, strictly following all the prescriptions of the recipe. Alas, the result obtained by Sandys did not please at all - the sauce prepared by pharmacists turned out to be absolutely inedible. The Lord did not even begin to take the prepared liquid for himself - the containers with the failed Indian dressing remained in the basement of the pharmacy.

And so the Worcestershire sauce would have sunk into oblivion if, by a lucky chance, a few years later, pharmacists had not discovered the ill-fated jars and had not ventured to try their contents again. Imagine their surprise when it turned out that over the years of infusion, he acquired an absolutely amazing taste and a tart, but pleasant aroma.

Lee and Perrins turned out to be entrepreneurial guys and very quickly set up a mass production of sauce under their own brand name. It was to the taste of the inhabitants of foggy Albion and the scale of production began to grow rapidly.

World favorite

Dishes with Worcestershire sauce are found in the diet of many countries. Many salads in Greece include it in their dressings. In China today, marinade using Worcestershire sauce is even ahead of soy sauce in its popularity. In the countries of the New World, it is customary to fill them with beans. Speaking about what Worcester sauce is eaten with, one cannot help but recall the famous hamburgers: this component is very often found in their dressings.

The world-famous Bloody Mary owes its legend to Worcestershire sauce: without it, the combination of vodka and tomato juice would not be so spicy.

Ingredients of Worcestershire Sauce

Speaking about what Worcester sauce is, we should first of all mention its rich composition. The recipe for Worcestershire sauce, from which two lucky apothecaries once obtained this original dressing, is kept secret and to this day a very limited number of companies are engaged in its production. But experienced tasters still lift the veil of what components it is derived from.

So, the composition of Worcestershire sauce includes onions (according to various sources - onion or Shallot, and possibly both), Tamarind, fish (anchovies and sardella are most often mentioned), garlic, Lanspic broth, lemon juice, celery stalk, horseradish, ginger , black molasses, corn syrup, malt vinegar and many spices: salt, black pepper, curry, chili, nutmeg, bay leaf, allspice, tarragon, asafoetida.

All components must go through a long period of fermentation. And although the production technology is classified, manufacturers do not hide the fact that it takes up to three years to produce one bottle of sauce.

How to make Worcestershire sauce at home

Culinary specialists give an unequivocal answer to this question “no way”. Firstly , the composition of the Wustre sauce with all the necessary proportions is still known only to manufacturing companies. Secondly, it is too multi-component product, requiring long and complex fermentation, which is almost impossible to carry out at home.

And yet you can make your own variation on this popular product. The taste will be different, of course, but it's not a bad option to substitute for factory-made Worcestershire sauce.

You will need:

1 anchovy
shallot bulb
2 cloves of garlic
Ground ginger root
3 tablespoons mustard seeds
peppercorns
cinnamon stick
Curry
Carnation
Cardamom
Red pepper
Tamarind
Soy sauce
Acetic acid
Sugar
Gauze for straining

Take a whole onion, fill it with vinegar. The marinating process only takes a few minutes. Next, take it out and chop it as finely as possible. Garlic should also be crushed and lightly sprinkled with vinegar. From gauze we form a kind of bag. We lower the chopped onion and garlic, cinnamon stick, all kinds of pepper and cardamom into it. The bag should be tightly tied.

Pour soy sauce and acetic acid into the pan, stir. Add 100g sugar and tamarind. Add some water. Put the pot on the fire. The resulting solution must be boiled for at least half an hour over low heat.

Place finely chopped anchovy, curry and salt in a separate container. Add some water, let stand. After half an hour, this mixture is also sent to the pan. We turn off the fire.

Next, prepare a glass container of a suitable volume with an airtight lid. Place the prepared gauze bag with spices in it, fill it with cooked sauce. Let the liquid cool, close the lid and refrigerate.

Homemade fermentation will take at least seven days. During the first week, daily it is necessary to remove the gauze bag from the jar and squeeze it carefully. After seven days, the bag is discarded, and the liquid is poured into smaller containers. Store in refrigerator.

However, if this method of preparation seems too long and complicated for you, we still recommend that you purchase the original sauce in stores, especially since its consumption is very economical, and the shelf life is long. One purchased bottle can last for several years.

Substitute for Worcestershire Sauce

If you didn’t manage to purchase it, and it takes too long to cook homemade, you can look for an alternative option. Sometimes it is enough to add a few anchovies to the dish so that its taste approaches the desired one. Sometimes a few drops of Tabasco sauce will do the trick. You can also look for Thai fish sauce - it also tastes like Worcestershire. Experiment, try, add spices - and you will achieve the desired balance of taste.

How Worcestershire Sauce is Used

It should not be used as a gravy, richly pouring over a steak or salad. This sauce is added drop by drop, in extreme cases - a teaspoon. This amount is enough to give the dish the desired piquancy and spiciness. If you go too far with the quantity, the food will be irrevocably spoiled by an abundance of salt and spices. So it is better to introduce it gradually, constantly trying.

It is better to pour a Worcester into drinks in a thin stream along the blade of a knife - it is easier to track the amount used. The meat is slightly smeared with them when marinating. It is better not to pour it directly into salads, but add it to the dressing, whisking well. The basis for salad dressings with Worcester can be butter, egg yolk and even yogurt.

Worcestershire sauce is perhaps one of the most legendary English sauces. His recipe is still an unsolved mystery, and fame has spread all over the world. Worcestershire sauce has a history of over 170 years. It was at that time that Lord Sandys, the governor of Bengal, returned to his homeland, to good old England. But during his governorship, he had become so accustomed to spicy oriental cuisine that decent English food seemed too insipid to him.

Then the lord invited two agile gentlemen, John Lea and William Perrins, who worked in one of the pharmacies, and suggested that they make the sauce according to the recipe he had preserved. The young people purchased all the necessary ingredients and began to fulfill the task of the lord. To everyone's dismay, the mixture they received was too spicy and smelled bad. The jars with the failed sauce were hidden in the basement and forgotten about for a long time. It wasn't until a few years later, while cleaning out the basement, that Leah and Perrins discovered their failed sauce and decided to try it again. Surprisingly, after a long exposure in a damp cellar, the sauce acquired a delicious taste! Lea and Perrins did not lose their heads, and already in 1837 they began to officially produce and sell Worcestershire sauce under the Lea & Perrins brand.

It must be said that in England the sauce was quickly tasted, and its sales began to grow every year. Worcestershire sauce soon gained worldwide fame. But its recipe is still known only to a limited circle of people. The sauce is said to contain fermented fish, molasses, tamarind, French garlic, English red onion, Madagascar cloves, chili peppers, and more. The technology for making Worcestershire sauce is also classified: special ingredients must mature in special barrels in the basement of the Worcester sauce factory. It takes 3 years and 3 months to make a bottle of Lea & Perrins sauce.

World Favorite

Worcestershire sauce is truly loved all over the world. In Greece and Spain it is added to salads, in China it rivals soy sauce in popularity and is the most popular marinade. In Canada and Central America, Worcestershire sauce is served with beans, and in the USA it is added to meat dishes and the famous hamburgers. Worcestershire sauce turned out to be a truly universal sauce, as it was ideal for any dishes: meat, vegetables, and fish. But that's not all.

The famous Bloody Mary would not exist without Worcestershire sauce. It was the drops of this sauce that in 1921 made the combination of vodka and tomato juice a legendary drink loved by millions.

After the 1886 earthquake that destroyed a village in New Zealand, the only thing that remained intact was found during excavations in the 1970s - the original bottle of Worcestershire sauce.

The famous explorer Francis Edward Young in Lhasa, in 1904, was treated to dinner by Tibetan monks, and there was a bottle of Worcestershire sauce on the table!

Worcestershire sauce is very economical due to its concentrated flavor. It is not poured into a dish with spoons - sometimes two or three drops are enough. But you can't do it on your own. Every company that has tried Worcestershire sauce has failed to replicate the success of Lea & Perrins sauce. At home, this miracle of cooking is definitely not cooked. And is there really a need for this when you can always buy an original bottle of real Worcestershire sauce to enjoy the unique and legendary taste of history itself.

Ready-made sauces are an absolute evil, there is no doubt about that. Mayonnaise, tartare, ketchup can be prepared at home, and it will be healthier and tastier. But there are also such sauces, the preparation of which by industrial means is not only possible, but at least justified - such as soy, fish, oyster sauces or Worcester sauce, which will be discussed today.

Worcester sauce came to us from England, where it continues to be produced to this day, and the English pharmacists Lee and Perrins who created it, in turn, were inspired by recipes from India, which at that time belonged to the British crown. The classic composition of the sauce includes several varieties of vinegar, molasses, sugar, tamarind extract, onion, garlic and spices, the exact composition of which is kept secret. This sauce is slightly lighter than soy sauce, and its taste and aroma are delicate enough not to interrupt the taste of the product, but to emphasize it - after all, Worcester sauce is mainly used not as a sauce in the usual sense for most of us, but as a liquid seasoning. Therefore, it makes sense to clarify why we, who have never heard of any Worcesters, need some kind of overseas liquid.

So what is Worcestershire sauce used for? First of all - to season meat dishes, such as steaks, or as a component of other sauces and salad dressings. Worcestershire sauce is included in the recipes of many classic dishes, the most famous of which is Caesar salad (Worster was in the original recipe, and adding anchovies to Caesar instead was invented later and for no reason) - as well as cocktails. For example, we often make Bloody Mary without a Worcester, but in a decent bar this sauce will definitely be added.

Otherwise, when using Worcestershire sauce, the main thing is the measure: a few drops are enough to give the dish a special aroma and enhance the taste, and we don’t need more from this sauce.

Now - the practical side of the issue. Worcestershire sauce is now sold in most major supermarkets, is not very expensive, and keeps in the refrigerator for quite a long time, so it is, so to speak, an investment for years to come. Of all the brands that you may meet, it is better to give preference to the same Lea and Perrins pharmacists - the old horse, even when bought by the Heinz concern, will not spoil the furrow. Heinzovsky sauce itself is best avoided - it does not look like a real one.

PS: Worcestershire sauce, as you already understood, is sometimes called simply "Worster", and sometimes - Worcestershire. The name comes from the English county of Worcestershire. Those who know English, without prompting, are likely to read this word as "Worchestershire", and so this sauce is also sometimes called. Only this is wrong.

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