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Ragout Powder

A powdered seasoning made from truffles, dried mushrooms, citrus peels, spices, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Ragout Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry the truffles, dried mushrooms, lemon peel, Seville orange peel, nutmeg, mace, black pepper, and cayenne over a fire.

  2. Pound the dried ingredients to a fine powder.

Finish and store

  1. Add the coarse sea salt.

  2. Sift the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Store the powder in a bottle for future use.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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

Truffles
Provide a concentrated earthy aroma that gives the powder its distinctive flavour.
Dried mushrooms
Add savoury depth and umami flavour to the powder.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the nutmeg.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma.
Cayenne
Adds clean chilli heat to the blend.

The step that matters

Drying the ingredients over a fire. Ingredients must be thoroughly dry before pounding, because residual moisture makes the mixture hard to grind to a fine powder and can cause it to clump or spoil in storage.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, mushroom, lemon, orange, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, mushroom, lemon, orange, nutmeg, pepper. 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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