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Kitchen Mixed Spice, for White Sauce
Take the grated rind of half a lemon, half a nutmeg, grated, an ounce of white pepper, and a tea-spoonful of powdered mace. Mix thoroughly. If not quite fine, pound all together in a mortar, and keep in a closely-stoppered bottle until wanted for use. Probable cost, 4d. for this quantity. When using kitchen mixed spice, put half a tea-spoonful into a pint of sauce, and taste if more is required.
A Victorian house blend for pale sauces, built entirely from spices that will not speck a white bechamel or veloute. The whole point is colour as much as flavour.
- The lemon rind is the weak linkFresh grated zest carries moisture that can cake the mix and encourage mould in a stoppered bottle. It is safer to dry the zest first, spread thin in a very low oven with the door ajar, or to substitute an equal amount of dried lemon peel.
- What an ounce of white pepper isAn ounce of ground white pepper is about 28g, roughly 4 tablespoons. Half a nutmeg grates to about 1.5 teaspoons. The blend is therefore overwhelmingly pepper, with mace and nutmeg as accents.
- Yield and dosageYou get a scant third of a cup, enough for many months of sauce-making. The stated rate is half a teaspoon per pint of sauce, and an imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so figure a slightly scant half teaspoon per US pint and taste from there.
- Buy mace, do not substitute nutmegMace is the lacy aril around the nutmeg seed and tastes lighter and more floral. Doubling the nutmeg instead makes the mix heavy and sweet, which is exactly what a white sauce does not want.
- Grind rather than poundA mortar will do it, but a spice grinder or clean coffee mill gives a more even powder in seconds. Pulse in short bursts so the friction heat does not drive off the volatile oils.
- StorageA closely-stoppered bottle means airtight; a small screw-top jar kept dark and away from the stove is the modern equivalent. Ground pepper and mace fade badly after about six months, so mix small quantities often rather than one large batch.
- Where it worksBeyond white sauce, it suits potted fish, chicken or veal fricassee, fish pies, and creamed soups. It is not a substitute for pudding spice or the darker mixed spice, which lean on cinnamon, cloves and allspice.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery belongs to the great run of late-Victorian household encyclopaedias, and this is a kitchen staple to be made once and kept on the shelf, like browning or forcemeat. Victorian cookery books commonly give more than one mixed spice: a dark one heavy with cloves, cinnamon and allspice for puddings, gravies and forcemeats, and a pale one like this for anything that had to stay white. That aesthetic requirement seems to explain the choices here: white pepper rather than black, mace rather than the browner-looking spices, lemon rind for lift without colour. Recipes in the book carry a 'probable cost', 4d. here, addressed to a readership keeping account of what their kitchens spent.