Chef Thomas
Anchovy Sauce
A proper white sauce sharpened with pounded anchovy, the old Georgian trick for waking up a piece of poached fish or a slice of roast lamb on a Sunday in spring.
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Cumberland Sauce
Created by Chef Thomas
A ruby-dark sauce of port, redcurrant jelly, and citrus zest, sharp with mustard and ginger, made for cold ham on Boxing Day and the long week of leftovers that follows.
Sauces & Condiments
British
Christmas
Special Occasion
10 min
Active Time
15 min cook•25 min total
YieldAbout 300ml, enough for a Boxing Day table
Boxing Day. The fridge is full of things wrapped in foil. A ham, half-carved. A game pie that has set overnight into something better than it was yesterday. Cold cuts, a terrine, the remains of the cheese. What you need is not more food. What you need is a sauce sharp enough to wake all of it up.
Cumberland sauce is that sauce. Port, redcurrant jelly, the pared zest of an orange and a lemon, a spoonful of mustard, a pinch of ginger. It comes together in fifteen minutes on the back of the hob while you're doing six other things, and it lasts in a jar for weeks. The colour alone justifies the trouble: a deep, glossy ruby that catches the light like a stained glass window in a country church.
I make it once a year, the morning after Christmas, while the kitchen still smells of yesterday's roast and the radio is on low. The redcurrant jelly comes out of the cupboard from the summer's preserving, or from a good jar bought for the purpose. The port is whatever bottle is open from Christmas Eve. The oranges are the ones piled in the bowl on the dresser, the sort that arrive in December and make the whole room smell of Christmas before you've even peeled one.
I wrote it down in the notebook the first year I made it properly: 'Boxing Day. Ham. Sauce in a jar. Worth the trouble.' It still is. There are few better feelings than carrying a cold plate to the table on a dark afternoon and putting a small bowl of something this red beside it.
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Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
orange
Quantity
1
zest pared into fine strips, juice reserved
lemon
Quantity
1
zest pared into fine strips, juice reserved
shallot
Quantity
1 small
very finely chopped
redcurrant jelly
Quantity
4 heaped tablespoons (about 150g)
ruby port
Quantity
150ml
English mustard powder
Quantity
1 teaspoon
or 1 tablespoon Dijon
ground ginger
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
cayenne pepper (optional)
Quantity
pinch
fine sea salt
Quantity
pinch
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| orangezest pared into fine strips, juice reserved | 1 |
| lemonzest pared into fine strips, juice reserved | 1 |
| shallotvery finely chopped | 1 small |
| redcurrant jelly | 4 heaped tablespoons (about 150g) |
| ruby port | 150ml |
| English mustard powderor 1 tablespoon Dijon | 1 teaspoon |
| ground ginger | 1/2 teaspoon |
| cayenne pepper (optional) | pinch |
| fine sea salt | pinch |
Equipment Needed
- •Small heavy-bottomed saucepan
- •Vegetable peeler
- •Fine sieve
- •Clean glass jar with a lid (about 350ml capacity)
Instructions
- 1
Pare the zest
Take a vegetable peeler to the orange and the lemon and lift the zest off in long, thin ribbons. No white pith. The pith is where the bitterness lives. Stack the ribbons and slice them lengthways into the finest threads you can manage. They should look like little strands of stained glass, orange and pale yellow, the colour of a December afternoon.
If your knife isn't sharp enough for fine julienne, don't fight it. Use a microplane and grate the zest instead. The texture is different but the flavour is the same. - 2
Blanch the zest and shallot
Bring a small pan of water to the boil. Drop in the zest threads and the chopped shallot together. Let them bubble for two minutes. This takes the raw edge off the shallot and the harshness out of the zest, leaving them softened and sweet. Drain through a sieve and set aside. The smell at this point is bright and clean, like Christmas morning when someone has just peeled an orange in the next room.
- 3
Melt the jelly with the port
Put the redcurrant jelly and the port into the same pan and set it over a low heat. Stir gently with a wooden spoon. The jelly will start to slacken, then collapse, then dissolve into the wine until you have a deep, glossy ruby liquid that smells of Christmas pudding and not much else. Don't rush it. If it boils hard now, the alcohol burns off too quickly and you lose the depth.
If the jelly is being stubborn, mash it against the side of the pan with the back of the spoon. Cheap jelly tends to be set firmer than good jelly. Either will get there in the end. - 4
Build the sauce
Squeeze in the juice of the orange and the lemon. Add the mustard, the ginger, the cayenne if you're using it, and a pinch of salt. Stir well, then tip in the blanched zest and shallot. The colour deepens further now, turning from ruby into something almost garnet. Let it bubble gently for eight to ten minutes, until the liquid has reduced and thickened enough to coat the back of the spoon. You're looking for a syrupy glaze, not a thick jam. It will firm up further as it cools.
- 5
Taste and bottle
Take it off the heat. Taste it. It should be sharp and sweet and warm all at once, with a clean citrus lift at the end. If it tastes flat, a touch more lemon juice will wake it up. If it tastes too sharp, another spoonful of jelly stirred in while it's still warm will settle it. Pour into a clean jar or jug and let it cool. The sauce keeps for weeks in the fridge and somehow gets better after a day or two, when all the flavours have had a chance to settle in together.
Chef Tips
- •The redcurrant jelly is the soul of this sauce, so use a good one. The supermarket stuff is mostly sugar and pectin and won't give you the depth you want. A jar from a proper preserver, or one you've made yourself in July when the currants come in, will repay you tenfold.
- •Don't waste a vintage port on this. A decent ruby is exactly right. Save the good stuff for the cheese. Whatever bottle has been open since Christmas Eve and is starting to flag is perfect.
- •Cumberland sauce is for cold things, mostly. Cold ham, cold game pie, a slice of pork pie, a terrine, a wedge of strong cheddar. It also turns a pile of leftover roast meat in a sandwich into something approaching ceremony.
- •Make it a day or two before you need it. The flavours marry in the jar overnight and the sauce is noticeably better on day two than on day one. This is one of the few things in the kitchen where waiting actually improves matters.
Advance Preparation
- •Best made at least one day ahead. The sauce improves as it sits and the flavours come together.
- •Keeps in a sealed jar in the fridge for up to three weeks. Bring to room temperature before serving so the sauce loosens and the aromas open up.
- •Makes a good present in a small jar with a handwritten label, the sort of thing you take to someone on Boxing Day along with a bottle of something.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 30g)
Calories
70 calories
Total Fat
0 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
0 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
15 mg
Total Carbohydrates
14 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
12 g
Protein
0 g
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