Home › The Principles of Cookery › RAGOUT POWDER (another way)
RAGOUT POWDER (another way)
Grate the rinds of two lemons and two Seville oranges. Take a quarter of a pound of truffles, a quarter of a pound of dried mushrooms, a large nutmeg grated, an ounce of powdered mace, an ounce of ground black pepper, and a salt-spoonful of cayenne. Dry these ingredients well before a gentle fire, as in the last recipe. Pound them to a powder in a marble mortar, mix with them two ounces of salt, pass the powder through a sieve, cork it tightly, and bottle for use.
This is a dry seasoning blend of the sort Victorian kitchens kept bottled to season stews and sauces at the last minute. The whole thing succeeds or fails on how thoroughly the ingredients are dried before grinding.
- Dry everything bone-dry firstDry everything thoroughly first -- residual moisture in the citrus zest, truffles or mushrooms will cake the powder and encourage mustiness. "Before a gentle fire" implies very low, steady heat; no temperature is given, so use the lowest setting your oven offers with the door cracked, or a dehydrator, until the zest is brittle and snaps rather than bends.
- Salt-spoonfulA salt-spoon held roughly a quarter teaspoon. That is a modest amount of cayenne against nearly a pound of other solids, so the blend is aromatic rather than hot.
- Seville orangesThe bitter marmalade orange, in season only in winter and rarely stocked. The bitterness is the point here; the closest substitute is a mix of ordinary orange zest with a little grapefruit or lime zest, though it will be sweeter. Zest thinly and take no white pith, which turns bitter in a bad way when dried.
- TrufflesA quarter pound of truffles is an extravagance in this context and modern dried truffle is often flavourless. Dried porcini plus a very small quantity of good truffle will do more for the blend than a large quantity of poor truffle.
- Dried mushroomsWeigh them dry, not reconstituted. A quarter pound of dried mushrooms is a large bagful and grinds down to a considerable volume of powder.
- GrindingA marble mortar works but is slow with this much material. An electric spice grinder in small batches gives a finer, more even powder; sieve as directed and regrind the coarse residue rather than discarding it.
- Yield and storageThis makes a sizeable quantity of powder. Keep it in a small tightly stoppered jar in the dark, and use it while the citrus oils and mace still have life; large jars let air at it every time you open them.
- How to use itA teaspoon or two stirred into a stew, gravy or braise near the end of cooking. Because it already contains two ounces of salt, adjust the salt in the dish itself accordingly.
Compound seasoning powders like this one, sometimes made up at home under the name "kitchen pepper", were a standing item in the English cook's cupboard from the eighteenth century onward, kept because the powder was meant to be reached for constantly. Ragout comes from the French ragouter, to revive the appetite, and that is precisely the job here: a spoonful of spice, dried mushroom and bitter citrus zest to lift a long-simmered stew that has gone flat. The truffles mark it as a recipe from the upper end of the household economy the book was written to serve, since the same effect could be had far more cheaply with mushrooms alone.