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Ragout Powder

A dry spice blend of lemon rind, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, ginger, cayenne, mace, cloves, and sea salt for ragouts and sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ragout Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice mix

  1. Dry the grated lemon rind, black pepper, dry mustard, nutmeg, ginger, cayenne, mace, and cloves slowly before a gentle fire, keeping them at a distance to prevent flavor loss.

  2. Pound the dried ingredients thoroughly in a marble mortar.

  3. Mix in the coarse sea salt.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Store

  1. Store the powder in small, perfectly dry bottles and cork them tightly.

  2. Keep in a dry place.

Use

  1. Add a small portion to ragouts and sauces for flavor.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grated lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils that give the blend a bright, citrusy scent.
Black pepper
Provides sharp heat and pungent aroma that carries through the mix.
Dry mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that deepens savory dishes.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and a gentle bite.
Cayenne pepper
Adds clean, direct heat to the blend.

The step that matters

Drying the spices gently. Heating over a gentle fire drives off moisture so the powder stays dry and grinds easily, while keeping the spices at a distance avoids scorching. Excess heat or moisture would dull the aromatic oils and let the mix spoil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, ginger, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, ginger, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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