Monkey gland sauce has its origins in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
. It has been featured as a
restaurant item since the 1930s, becoming a South African restaurant and
fast food staple
condiment
A condiment is a preparation that is added to food, typically after cooking, to impart a specific flavor, to enhance the flavor, or to complement the dish. A table condiment or table sauce is more specifically a condiment that is served separat ...
. It is a thick, sweet and tangy sauce and dark in colour. It is typically served as a topping for grilled steaks or burgers, but is also used as a marinade, a dipping sauce for onion rings and fries, or on roasted potatoes.
Ingredients
The main components of monkey gland sauce are
chutney
A chutney is a spread in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sa ...
and
tomato sauce
Tomato sauce (also known as ''salsa roja'' in Spanish or ''salsa di pomodoro'' in Italian) can refer to many different sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish, rather than as a condiment. Tomato sauces are c ...
– which result in a sweet mixture. Then an addition of
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onio ...
s,
vinegar
Vinegar is an aqueous solution of acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. Vinegar typically contains 5–8% acetic acid by volume. Usually, the acetic acid is produced by a double fermentation, converting simple sugars to eth ...
,
garlic and
Worcestershire sauce, give it a savoury-sweet flavour
Naming
Despite its name, the sauce does not contain any monkey glands.
There are various theories on the origins of the sauce but the most likely is that it originated with French chefs at the old Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg.
South African diners added sauces such as chutney, tomato sauce, and Worcester sauce to the French dishes before eating it. Thus, the disgruntled chefs combined all the condiments to create a sauce which they named monkey gland sauce. There was speculation at the time that monkey glands could slow down ageing.
A more outlandish theory is that it was named after Russian-born French scientist,
Dr Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff, who was a regular visitor at the Savoy hotel in London. One of his medical experiments involved grafting monkey testicle tissue onto impotent men as a cure. The hotel renamed his favourite steak dish the "monkey gland steak" when he became famous. Then an ex-Savoy waiter brought it over to South Africa in the 1930s.
See also
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Monkey Gland
The Monkey Gland is a cocktail of gin, orange juice, grenadine and absinthe created in the 1920s by Harry MacElhone, owner of Harry's New York Bar in Paris, France.
Some recipes substitute absinthe with pastis or Bénédictine.
It is named a ...
– cocktail
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List of dips
*
List of sauces
Notes
References
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Sauces
South African cuisine
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