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Hot Spice, for Flavouring Sauce, Gravies, Etc
Take half an ounce each of cinnamon, black pepper, and ginger. Pound them thoroughly in a mortar, and with them three-quarters of an ounce of cayenne, one ounce of mace, two ounces of finely-grated nutmeg, three ounces of white pepper, and a dozen cloves. When thoroughly pounded and mixed put these ingredients into a bottle, and keep the spice closely stoppered until required. Time, half an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. 8d. When it is to be used, try a little pinch of the powder at first, and add more if required.
A dry spice blend of the sort every Victorian kitchen kept on the shelf for finishing gravies, sauces and made dishes. Nothing here is difficult; the only real question is how much of it you want.
- Total yieldThe weights add up to about 8 oz (roughly 225 g) of finished powder — a large quantity by modern standards, since a pinch at a time is the intended dose. Quartering the recipe gives about 2 oz, enough to use up within a year before the volatile oils fade.
- Weights, not spoonsEvery quantity is given by weight, which matters because ground spices differ enormously in density. Use a scale rather than trying to convert to spoonfuls; half an ounce is about 14 g.
- The dozen clovesCloves are the only ingredient counted rather than weighed. A dozen whole cloves is roughly 1.5 g, so they are a trace note here, not a main player — do not substitute a spoonful of ground clove.
- MaceMace is the dried outer covering of the nutmeg seed, milder and more floral than the nutmeg kernel itself. It is sold as blades or ready-ground; blades need real work in a mortar, so buy it ground unless you have a spice grinder.
- Pepper balanceThree ounces of white pepper against half an ounce of black makes this a white-pepper blend, chosen because it disappears into pale sauces. The three-quarters ounce of cayenne is what carries the heat; cayenne strength varies widely, so start lower if yours is fierce.
- GrindingA mortar will take the stated half hour and still leave the black pepper gritty. An electric spice or coffee grinder does it in under a minute; sift the result and regrind the coarse fraction.
- Storage"Closely stoppered" means airtight and, ideally, dark. Ground spice loses aroma in months rather than years, so a small opaque jar kept away from the stove is better than a large clear one on the shelf above it.
- Using itThe closing instruction is the useful one: add a pinch, taste, add more. This blend is strong enough that a heaped spoonful will overwhelm a pint of gravy, and the cayenne continues to bloom as the sauce sits.
Compound spice powders like this one are a direct descendant of the medieval and early modern spice mixtures — poudre forte, poudre douce and their kin — that cooks kept premixed so a dish could be seasoned in one motion. Nineteenth-century British kitchens are often said to have kept two: a mild or "sweet" spice for puddings and cakes, and a hot spice such as this for gravies, hashes, potted meats and devilled dishes. The listed cost of 1s. 8d. is a reminder that these were once genuinely expensive goods, and the appearance of cayenne alongside the older Asian spices marks how completely the American capsicum had naturalised into the British store cupboard.