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Oude Sauce for Cold Meat
Mince two onions very finely. Fry them in two ounces of clarified butter, and stir them about until they are lightly browned without being burnt. Add half a dozen chillies cut into small pieces, a quarter of a tea-spoonful of salt, and one ounce of the flesh of a dried haddock which has been torn into flakes with two forks. Stir all well together for three or four minutes, and whilst stirring add, in small quantities at a time, a dessert-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, two table-spoonfuls of tomato-pulp, and a little water. When the sauce is as thick as paste it is ready for serving. It should be made the day on which it is to be used. Time, altogether, about twenty minutes. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A thick Anglo-Indian relish rather than a pouring sauce, built on browned onion, chilli and dried fish. The hinge is texture: it must be reduced to a spreadable paste, and the water goes in a spoonful at a time so the mixture never becomes soupy.
- Dessert-spoonfulA dessert-spoon is generally reckoned at about two teaspoons, so the lemon juice is roughly 10 ml. Victorian tablespoons were usually taken as about half a fluid ounce, close to the modern 15 ml.
- Half a dozen chilliesThe original does not say fresh or dried, or what sort. Six of anything hot will overwhelm four or five people by current tastes; start with one or two and taste as the sauce reduces, since the heat concentrates along with everything else.
- Dried haddockMost likely a hard-dried or salt-dried haddock rather than a modern moist smoked fillet, though period usage was not consistent. Finnan haddie, salt cod, or dried Asian fish shavings all give a similar salty, savoury backbone; one ounce is about 30 g, and it should be shredded fine so it dissolves into the paste.
- SaltAdd it at the end rather than with the fish. Dried and salted haddock varies enormously in saltiness, and a quarter teaspoon on top of a heavily cured fish will be too much.
- Clarified butterTwo ounces is about 55 g. Ghee is the direct equivalent and its high smoke point is the point here, since the onions want a steady browning without the milk solids catching.
- Tomato-pulpThe original specifies only 'tomato-pulp', most likely sieved tomato. Passata or crushed tinned tomato works; tomato paste does not, being far more concentrated than what was intended.
- Judging the finish"As thick as paste" means it holds a furrow when you draw a spoon through the pan. Twenty minutes total is realistic only over moderate heat with frequent stirring.
- Keeping and yieldCassell's instruction to make it the day it is eaten is sound: there is no vinegar or sugar here to preserve it, so it is a fresh relish, not a bottled sauce. It gives roughly half a cup, enough for four or five as a condiment with cold roast meat or ham.
The name is generally taken to point to Oudh (Awadh), the north Indian kingdom annexed by the East India Company in 1856, though the connection is inference rather than established fact; sauces and chutneys bearing Indian place names filled English cookery books of the period, their connection to the actual region often loose. What is authentic here is the structure: browned onion, chilli, souring agent and a small quantity of dried fish used as a savoury base, a pattern shared with the sambals and dried-fish relishes of coastal South and Southeast Asia, where dried fish supplies depth that no amount of onion can. Cassell's, compiled for middle-class households in the 1870s and 80s, gathered such recipes alongside plain English cookery because cold meat was the constant reality of Victorian dinners, and relishes were one way to make Monday's joint interesting. The costing at eightpence marks it as an inexpensive dish, worth the trouble of a fresh preparation on the day.