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QUIN'S SAUCE (another way)
To a quart of walnut pickle add six anchovies, six bay-leaves, six shallots, three cloves, a blade of mace, half a tea-spoonful of cayenne, and a dozen peppercorns. Boil the whole until the anchovies are dissolved. Take it off the fire; when cold, add half a pint of red wine, and bottle the sauce, corking the bottles well.
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A store sauce of the Harvey's and Worcestershire family: a spiced vinegar base carrying dissolved anchovy, kept in corked bottles and used by the spoonful. The whole point is the anchovy, so give it time to break down completely.
- Walnut pickleThis means the dark spiced vinegar drained from a jar of pickled walnuts, not the walnuts themselves. If you have no jar to rob, mushroom ketchup or a good malt vinegar steeped with a little soy and allspice stands in for the colour and depth, though the flavour will be less resinous.
- Imperial measuresCassell's quart is 40 fl oz, about 5 US cups; the half pint of red wine is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. The finished yield is roughly 1 1/2 US quarts of sauce.
- AnchoviesVictorian recipes of this kind generally meant salt-cured whole anchovies, bones and all, which is why they dissolve; the book itself does not specify. Rinse modern salt-packed anchovies before use, or use six oil-packed fillets and accept a slightly thinner result. Anchovy paste will work if that is what is to hand — reckon roughly half a teaspoon per fillet and taste as you go.
- The hinge: dissolve, don't reduceSimmer gently and stir until no fibre of anchovy remains, 15 to 25 minutes, rather than boiling hard. A fast boil drives off the vinegar and concentrates the salt into something harsh.
- A blade of maceOne flake of the lacy outer covering of nutmeg, roughly 1/4 teaspoon of ground mace if you substitute. Cayenne at half a teaspoon across five cups of liquid is background warmth, not heat.
- Add the wine coldThe recipe has you wait until the pan is cold before the wine goes in; the likely reason is that heat would drive off the wine's aroma, which is most of what it contributes. Let the pan come down to room temperature.
- Strain and storeThe original does not say to strain, but passing the cold sauce through a fine sieve or muslin before bottling will give a clearer result. Use scalded bottles, and despite the original's confidence in a cork, keep it in the refrigerator and use within a few months.
- How to use itA condiment, not a pouring sauce. A teaspoon or two goes into fish gravies, chops, hashes and devilled dishes, much as Worcestershire is used now.
The name is generally traced to James Quin (1693-1766), the actor whose reputation as an eater rivalled his reputation as a tragedian; the sauce was attached to him posthumously by cookery writers rather than by any documented recipe of his own, and nineteenth-century books print several unrelated versions under his name, one of which Cassell's offers as "another way." It belongs to the great Victorian family of bottled anchovy sauces, alongside Harvey's, Worcestershire and mushroom ketchup, which existed because a well-run larder needed concentrated savour on hand at all times: vinegar, salt and fermented fish keep for months where fresh stock does not. The walnut pickle base is the domestic thrift in the recipe, since no household that put down pickled walnuts in July would throw away the spiced liquor left in the jar.