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Mixed Spices and Seasohikos

A blend of black pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, ground and mixed for seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mixed Spices and Seasohikos

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dry and finely pound the black pepper.

  2. Finely pound the nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.

  3. Mix all the spices together.

  4. Bottle the mixture tightly for storage.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the spice blend.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spice blend.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the spice blend.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma to the spice blend.
Cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma to the spice blend.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, 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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