Home › The Principles of Cookery › Rajah's Relish
Rajah's Relish
Take the thin rind of half a lemon, the juice of six large or nine small lemons, a tea-spoonful of salt, and a salt-spoonful of cayenne, and put all into an enamelled saucepan. Bring to the boil, simmer for five minutes, turn into an earthen vessel, and cover with a cloth until cold, then strain very carefully until clear. Pour into small dry bottles, cork well, and store in a cool dry place. Probable cost, 10d.
A bottled lemon-and-cayenne condiment rather than a chunky relish — closer to a hot lemon essence for spooning over curry, fish or soup. Two things decide whether it works: the rind must carry no pith, and the pan must not be bare metal.
- Rind, not zest with pithTake the outer yellow only, in wide pared strips, from half a lemon. Any white pith turns the finished liquid bitter as it simmers and there is nothing else in the bottle to hide it.
- Why enamelledUndiluted lemon juice held at a boil will strip flavour off bare cast iron, aluminium or unlined copper. Enamel, glass or stainless steel are all fine; the instruction is about metal, not about the shape of the pan.
- A salt-spoonfulThe Victorian salt-spoon holds roughly a quarter teaspoon. That is a serious amount of cayenne for the volume of juice, which is the point — treat it as a seasoning to be used by the few drops.
- Quantity of juiceSix large lemons will give somewhere around 250-350 ml of juice; nine small ones about the same. Taste and scale the salt and cayenne with it if your lemons are unusually generous.
- Straining clearLet it cool fully before straining, as the original says, then pass it through muslin or a coffee filter. Rushing it while warm carries pulp and cayenne sediment through, and the relish clouds and settles in the bottle.
- Bottles and storageUse small bottles scalded and dried, and fill them nearly to the cork so little air is trapped. The mixture is strongly acidic, but it has no heat-processed seal — keep it in the refrigerator and use within a few weeks rather than trusting the cool dry place.
- Yield and useExpect somewhere around 250-350 ml, which is a great deal of it. A teaspoon stirred into a curry, a clear soup, or melted butter for grilled fish is the intended scale of use.
- Probable costTenpence, most of which would have gone on the lemons. Cassell's gives a 'probable cost' for most of its entries.
The name borrows the vocabulary of British India to sell heat to a British table. Cassell's compiled its dictionary in the decades when curry powder, mango chutney and bottled sauces had become ordinary grocer's stock, and a home cook was expected to keep her own sharp seasonings on the shelf beside them. There is nothing specifically Indian about the formula itself: lemon juice, salt and cayenne boiled briefly and bottled is a European preserving trick, the acid doing the keeping — one small bottle standing in for fresh lemons and fresh chilli at a season when neither was reliably to be had.