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Indian Sauce
Boil together for five minutes, in a small quantity of stock, a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, a bit of glaze the size of a walnut, a table-spoonful of curry-paste, and a pinch of cayenne. Mix with the above half a pint of tomato pulp, boil up, and serve.
A short, sharp compound sauce built on the Victorian store cupboard: three concentrated flavourings loosened with stock and bulked out with tomato. The whole thing takes under ten minutes once you have the components.
- GlazeMeat glaze (glace de viande) is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A piece "the size of a walnut" is roughly a rounded tablespoon, about 20 g. Commercial demi-glace or a good stock concentrate stands in; if you use a bouillon cube, cut the salt elsewhere, since anchovy sauce is already salty.
- Anchovy sauceNot the modern jarred pasta sauce but a thin bottled condiment of anchovy, vinegar and spice, close in spirit to Worcestershire. A teaspoon of anchovy paste plus a few drops of vinegar gives the same effect.
- Curry pasteVictorian curry paste was a British commercial product, typically some combination of turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, chilli and oil, though blends varied by maker. It was generally less fierce than many Indian or Thai pastes sold now. Use a plain Madras-style paste, and taste before adding the cayenne.
- How much stock"A small quantity" is genuinely vague. Aim for about 4 fl oz (120 ml) — enough to dissolve the glaze and paste and let them simmer without catching, since the tomato pulp arrives afterwards to make up the volume.
- Tomato pulpHalf a pint here is the imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz or about 285 ml. Passata is the closest modern equivalent; tinned chopped tomatoes should be sieved first, as the sauce is meant to be smooth.
- The five minutesThat first boil is to dissolve the glaze and cook the raw edge off the curry paste. Once the tomato goes in, only bring it back to a boil — long simmering flattens the spice and dulls the tomato.
- CayenneNineteenth-century cayenne was often adulterated and variable. Add a pinch, taste, and add more; the curry paste may already carry enough heat.
- Yield and servingAbout three-quarters of a pint (roughly 425 ml), which should serve four to six. It suits grilled or fried fish, cold roast meat reheated in it, rissoles, or hard-boiled eggs.
Sauces called "Indian" in British cookery books of the later nineteenth century rarely came from India; they came from the bottle shelf of the British grocer, where curry paste, anchovy sauce and cayenne sat alongside mushroom ketchup and Harvey's. It behaves like a French compound sauce — a base of stock and glaze, sharpened with a salty ferment and finished with a purée — that has simply been given an imperial accent. Commercial curry powder had been sold in London since the late eighteenth century, with prepared pastes following in the nineteenth, and such products were ordinary household stock by the 1870s, which is why the recipe assumes you have a jar and gives no formula for it. The tomato is the modern note: tomato pulp only became a routine kitchen ingredient in Britain in the second half of the century, as tinned and bottled supplies made it available outside the summer.