Oude Sauce is a traditional British recipe for a classic Victorian chilli sauce flavoured with dried haddock in a tomato, onion and lemon juice base. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Oude Sauce.
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This is a classic Victorian chilli sauce, also known as King of Oude's Sauce that was sold bottled (Crosse & Blackwell's version being the commonest), but which was also frequently made at home. The sauce is ultimately Indian in origin, being named after the Oudh State. A companion recipe being that for the Queen of Oude sauce. Fortnum & Mason do prepare and sell a ‘King of Oude’s’ sauce made from Worcestershire sauce blended with sugar, wine vinegar, redcurrant jelly, citrus and Port – no chilli, which is odd as Francatelli uses oude sauce as the spicy base for his Devil's sauce.
The recipe I have here is based on that found in Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen Mrs BC Hound, Baltimore, Norman, Remington Co. 1913, which I give below.
Original Recipe
Veritable Oude Sauce or Chetney (From An Old English Receipt Book)
Put two ounces of butter into a stew pan, and when melted, add six onions shredded. When they begin to take color, put in a dozen and a half of chilis chopped finely. Stir it well together for four minutes, then put in a small quantity of dried salt fish, not exceeding two square inches, chopped very fine. Keep stirring, and as the butter dries, add a large cupful of the pulp of fresh tomatoes, a tea-spoonful of salt, the juice of a lemon and a little water. Mix the whole very well together, and let it be of the consistency of a paste, though not too dry. It is to be eaten with cold meats, but will not keep.
I've used smoked haddock (kipper) here as the smoked fish, added lemon juice as the acidic preservative and Worcestershire sauce which was the base for many Crosse & Blackwell sauces.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
2 onions, finely diced
3 tbsp butter
4 tomatoes, blanched and peeled
2 chillies, minced
60g dried smoked haddock, shredded (or any good dried fish)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
juice of 1/2 lemon (or substitute cider vinegar) nutmeg, to taste
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
Melt the butter in a pan, add the onions and chillies and fry for about 6 minutes, or until the onions are lightly golden. Stir in the tomatoes and dried haddock and fry for 2 minutes.
Now add the lemon juice, 300ml water and season to taste. Add the horseradish, bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and either pound in a mortar or purée in a blender before mixing in the Worcestershire sauce. Allow to heat through then cool slightly before bottling and stoppering securely.
Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes then allow to cool and store for use. Typically it was eaten with cold meat but was also used as a flavour base for other sauces.
