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Savoury Ragout Powder

A spice blend of salt, mustard, allspice, black pepper, lemon peel, ginger, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Savoury Ragout Powder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine salt, mustard, and allspice (or mace and cloves) in a bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix black pepper, lemon peel, ginger, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.

Grind and store

  1. Pound the spices together until fine.

  2. Sift the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Dry the spices in a Dutch oven over gentle heat before grinding.

  4. 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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  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

Salt
Carries and balances the flavour of the other spices.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungency that gives the blend its bite.
Black pepper
Adds warm, sharp heat that stands up to the other spices.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma from its fragrant oils.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, sweet aroma.

The step that matters

Dry the spices before grinding. Spices that still hold moisture clump and resist grinding, and drying over gentle heat helps them break down into a fine, evenly flavoured powder. Heat that is too high can scorch the aromatic oils and leave a bitter taste.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, lemon, ginger, nutmeg. 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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