Tapp's Sauce
Tapp's Sauce is a traditional Anglo-Indian recipe from the 1860s for a classic condiment or sauce made from the soaking liquid of mango, chillies, garlic and raisins. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Anglo-Indian version of: Tapp's Sauce.
prep time
10 minutes
cook time
20 minutes
Total Time:
30 minutes
Additional Time:
(+20 days maturing)
Makes:
2 bottles
Rating: 
Tags : Chilli RecipesSauce RecipesVegetarian RecipesFusion RecipesBritish Recipes
This is a traditional Anglo-Indian recipe redacted from the volume
THE INDIAN COOKERY BOOK: A Practical Handbook to The Kitchen in India (author unknown), published by: WYMAN & CO., HARE STREET CALCUTTA circa 1869.
.
Original Recipe
332.—Tapp Sauce
Ingredients:—Three seers or six pounds of peeled and sliced mangoes, two pounds of ground raisins,
a pound of ground garlic, half a pound of ground chilies, a pound and a half of ground ginger, a
pound of sugar, two pounds of salt, a quart of lime-juice, and six quarts of vinegar.
Mix all the above well together, put it into stone jars, and expose it to the sun for twenty days or a
month, after which drain away the liquid, which is the sauce; boil it for ten to fifteen minutes, and
when cold bottle and cork it.
Modern Redaction
I first came across this sauce as Trapp's Sauce in Elizabeth David's Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen. That was based on a Victorian original, which I subsequently failed to obtain a Victorian original for. But here it is!
Call this the Tabasco sauce of it's day... Adapted for the English tastes of the day of course... think chilli vinegar blended with mangos to produce a fruity yet tangy sauce.
Ingrednets:
1kg mangoes, peeled and sliced
175g garlic, pounded to a paste
50g chillies, pounded to a paste
175g raisins, pounded to a paste in a mortar
150g sugar
150g sea salt
190ml lime juice
1.15l vinegar
Method:
Mix everything together, then divide between jars. Stopper well then sit in the sun every day for 20 days. After this time, strain through a fine-meshed sieve lined with muslin (do not press down on the pulp or the mixture will become cloudy).
Pour into a saucepan, bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Allow to cool slightly then pour into warmed bottles. Stopper these and store in a cool, dark place.
Once opened store in the refrigerator.
Note that in the above recipe I have kept the proportions as they were in the original. For my version of the sauce I add 50g yellow habanero chillies and 1/2 green mango whilst reducing the vinegar to 1l. This results in a yellower sauce that's slighly cloudier but with more bite (as in the image).
Find more Victorian Recipes Here and more Curry Recipes Here. For the original version of The Indian Cookery book see my The Indian Cookery Book main page.
