Name: Kitchen Spice for White Sauce
Ingredients: 2 ounces white pepper; ¼ ounce mace; 1 nutmeg; peel of 1 lemon

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Kitchen Spice for White Sauce

Ingredients

2 ounces white pepper
¼ ounce mace
1 nutmeg
peel of 1 lemon

Directions

Pound the white pepper and mace together.
Grate the nutmeg and add it to the mixture.
Add the lemon peel and mix all ingredients together in a bottle.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,695 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

White pepper: Adds a sharp, warm pungency that gives the blend its main bite.
Mace: Contributes a warm, delicate aroma that rounds out the spice blend.
Nutmeg: Adds a sweet, woody aroma that deepens the warmth of the blend.
Lemon peel: Its aromatic oils add a bright citrus note to the warm spices.