Name: Savoury Ragout Powder
Ingredients: 1 ounce salt; ½ ounce mustard; ¼ ounce allspice; ½ ounce black pepper, ground; ½ ounce lemon peel, grated; ¼ ounce ginger, grated; ¼ ounce nutmeg, grated; 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

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

Combine salt, mustard, allspice, black pepper, lemon peel, ginger, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.
Pound the mixture until fine and pass it through a fine sieve.
Dry the spices in a Dutch oven over low heat before grinding.
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.

Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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: Seasons the spice mix and draws moisture out of the mixture when stored.
Black pepper: Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the blend.
Nutmeg: Contributes warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the spices.
Cayenne pepper: Adds clean, direct heat to the blend.

The step that matters

Drying the spices over low heat before grinding. Gentle heat removes residual moisture so the spices grind to a fine, dry powder that keeps well. Too much heat can scorch the spices and dull their aroma.

Swap the mustard

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

Carrotfits better
Parsnipfits better
Shallotfits better
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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Savoury Ragout Powder