Ingredient: Worcestershire sauce (Worcester sauce)
Category: Dressings & condiments
Season: All
Worcestershire sauce is a widely used fermented liquid condiment, first made at 68 Broad Street, Worcester by Messers Lea & Perrins at some point in the 1830s.
It was made commercially in 1837, and remains the only Worcestershire Sauce to still be made in the county.
In 1930 the business was sold to HP Foods and was subsequently acquired by the HJ Heinz company when they acquired that business from Groupe Danone in 2005.
The product is made and bottled in the Midlands Road factory in Worcester, which has been the home of Lea & Perrins since 16th October 1897.
Originally manufactured by Lea & Perrins, in Midland Road, Worcester, England.
The H. J. Heinz Company, who now manufactures "Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce", lists the following ingredients on the label: malt vinegar (from barley), spirit vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions, garlic, spices (including cloves), and flavouring.
It is a flavouring used in many dishes, both cooked and uncooked, and particularly with beef.
It is an important ingredient in Caesar salad and in a Bloody Mary.
Lea & Perrins supplies it in concentrate form to be bottled abroad.
Worcestershire sauce is generically referred to as Worcester sauce or simply as Wooster sauce.
Though a fermented fish sauce called garum was a staple of Greco-Roman cuisine and of the Mediterranean economy of the Roman Empire, "Worcestershire sauce" is one of the many legacies of British contact with India.
While some sources trace comparable fermented anchovy sauces in Europe to the 17th century, this one became popular in the 1840s.
Dishes using Worcestershire sauce:
Worcestershire sauce is often an ingredient of Caesar Salad and can be used as steak sauce.
Welsh rarebit is a combination of Caerphilly cheese, English mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and other ingredients, frequently eaten with bread, toast or crackers.
A simpler version uses Worcestershire sauce with cheese on toast, with the sauce added to the plain version during the grilling process.
Worcestershire sauce also plays a key role in the flavour of original recipe Chex Mix.
Filipino cooking uses it frequently as a marinade, especially with pork. Filipinos also use it as a favourite dipping sauce for fried chicken, by mixing Lea & Perrins with ketchup.
Marylanders often use this sauce in their famous crab cakes.
In Hong Kong style dim sum, Worcestershire sauce is the de facto standard sauce for serving steamed beef meatballs.
The Cantonese name for this sauce is "geet-jup" (Chinese: pinyin: jiézhī; Cantonese Yale: gip jāp). It is also used in a variety of Hong Kong-style Chinese and "Western" dishes .
In Shanghainese cuisine
The use of Worcestershire sauce spread from European-style restaurants in the 19th and 20th century to its use as an ingredient in ubiquitous, Eastern European-inspired dishes such as Shanghai-style borscht, and as a dipping sauce in Western fusion foods such as Shanghai-style breaded pork cutlets.
It is also commonly used for Chinese foods such as the shengjian mantou, which are small, pan-fried pork buns. In Shanghai, Worcestershire sauce is called "luh jiangyou" (Chinese: pinyin: làjiàngyóu; literally "spicy soy sauce").
After imported Worcestershire sauce became scarce in Shanghai after 1949 , a variety of local brands appeared. These are now in turn exported around the world for use in Shanghai-style dishes.
Japanese Worcestershire sauce:
Japanese Worcestershire sauce, often simply known as sōsu ("sauce"), or Usutā sōsu ("Worceter sauce") is made from purees of fruits and vegetables such as apples and tomatoes, matured with sugar, salt, spices, starch and caramel.
Despite this appellation, it bears only moderate resemblance to Western Worcestershire sauce . Sōsu comes in a variety of thickness, with the thicker sauces looking and tasting like a cross between the original Worcestershire sauce and HP sauce.
There are many variations according to flavour and thickness , and are often named after the foods they are designed to go with, such as okonomiyaki sauce and tonkatsu sauce.
It has become a staple table sauce in Japan , particularly in homes and canteens, since the 1950s. It is used for dishes such as tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets), okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes), takoyaki, yakisoba, yaki udon, sōsu katsudon and korokke.
In the UK
Advertising by Lea & Perrins has made Worcestershire Sauce popular for use on spaghetti bolognese, cheese on toast, chips, gravy and sausages.
It is also frequently used in chili con carne, and in a cocktail known mostly to Canadians called a Caesar
Worcestershire sauce (known as salsa inglesa in Spanish) is an essential ingredient of the popular Mexican beercocktail, the Michelada. It is also a key ingredient, besides lemon juice, in the marinade of Peruvian ceviche.
People also use it to flavour cheeseburgers.
Finally, it is nearly universally available as a condiment in steakhouses throughout North America, and is also sometimes used as a condiment for hamburgers, pork chops, chicken, and certain other meats and fish.
Hendersons Relish
There is also a very similar sauce to Worcester sauce made and sold localy in Sheffield, called Hendersons Relish.
This sauce is sold in the same size and shape of bottle as Lea and Perrins Worcester sauce and also has an orange label, which calls it 'The Spicy Yorkshire Sauce'.
It is only on general sale in the Sheffield area and is often found along side Lea and Perrins Worcester sauce on supermarket shelves, and although only made in a small factory on Leavygreave Road in the middle of the University of Sheffield campus.
Despite the small scale of the company the sales of Hendersons Relish are increasing as proved by increasing supermarket and internet sales.
Vegetarian substitutions:
Vegetarian and gluten free alternatives are available; the vegetarian variety omits the anchovies (notably Henderson's Relish).
'Life' Worcester sauce, produced by MH Foods (Morehands Ltd), is both vegetarian (no meat, no fish) and suitable for coeliacs (no gluten ingredients. Note: Lea & Perrins is also gluten free).
Angostura also offers a fish-free sauce, but doesn't advertise itself as "vegetarian."
There are also fish-free sauces produced for the Kosher market, not because anchovies aren't kosher, but because of an Orthodox prohibition on eating meat and fish together.
These versions can then be used in recipes featuring meat.
It appears that Worcester sauce powders are vegetarian . The powder produced by Nikken Foods contains no meat or fish, nor the one produced by Provesta Flavour Ingredients |