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Spice, Mixed, for Seasoning Sauces, Stews, Etc
Take two dozen allspice, the rind of three lemons, a quarter of an ounce of mace, twelve cloves, and two nutmegs. Powder the ingredients, first separately, and afterwards together, and mix with them a salt-spoonful of cayenne and three ounces of white pepper. Put the powder into a perfectly dry and sound bottle, cork closely, and store in a dry place till wanted. It will retain its flavour for months.
A house seasoning powder of the kind Victorian kitchens kept beside the salt box, weighted heavily toward white pepper. The only step that can spoil it is the lemon rind.
- Dry the peel firstFresh zest carries enough moisture to cake the powder and grow mould in a corked bottle. Pare the coloured rind only, with no white pith, and dry it until it snaps rather than bends — a few hours in an oven at its lowest setting, or a day or two spread on a rack in a warm room.
- "Two dozen allspice"Twenty-four whole allspice berries, roughly 2 g or about a teaspoon once ground. Buy them whole; pre-ground allspice loses its volatile oil faster.
- A quarter of an ounce of maceAbout 7 g, a bulky quantity of blades for its weight. Blade mace is stringy and resists a mortar; a spice grinder or clean coffee mill handles it far better.
- A salt-spoonful of cayenneThe Victorian salt-spoon held about a quarter of a teaspoon. Cayenne heat varies enormously between brands, so treat it as a starting point and taste the finished blend.
- Three ounces of white pepper85 g, or roughly three-quarters of a cup of peppercorns. This is by far the largest component and sets the character of the mix: the other spices are accents on a pepper base, not equal partners.
- Grind separately, then togetherThe instruction is not fussiness. Nutmeg, mace and peppercorns all break down at different rates, and grinding them as one batch leaves pepper dust alongside nutmeg gravel. Sieve each through a fine mesh, return the coarse fragments to the grinder, then combine.
- Yield and storageAbout 4 oz (115 g) of powder, enough to fill a standard 250 ml jar. "Months" is fair for a sealed jar kept dark and cool, though the citrus note fades first.
- How to use itStart at half a teaspoon per litre of stew or sauce, added early enough for the mace and allspice to soften but not so early that the pepper turns harsh. It suits brown sauces, meat stews and potted meats rather than anything delicate.
Compound seasoning powders like this one were common in nineteenth-century English kitchens, where they saved a cook from measuring out five separate spices for every pot of gravy. The combination of allspice, mace, cloves, nutmeg and a heavy hand of white pepper is close to the older English "kitchen pepper" of the eighteenth century. White pepper rather than black suits a pale sauce: it disappears into the gravy where black pepper would speckle it.