[Sca-cooks] Re: Ras el Haout

[Sue Clemenger]

It's one of those amorphous blends like "curry."
I actually used google to try and find some recipes.  Ingredients varied
quite a bit.  A fair number included roses, or turmeric, and then there
were the weird ones that included things like spanish fly (!)
So I made myself a list of the most commonly repeated spices and worked
from there--at the time, I had a lot of lovely spices in my cupboard,
but was trying to cut down on some stuff because I was getting ready to
move.
A couple of the recipes mentioned doing the blend as whole spices, and
then roasting/grinding as needed, but I was after a powdered blend, so
that's what I did.  I used roughly equal portions, I think, of most of
the spices, with the exception of the saffron (better part of one little
package, which happened to be what I had in the house) and cayenne (done
at about a quarter the amount of the others, because of its potency).
IIRC, I included the following spices, in no particular order:
Cinnamon (ceylon)
Ginger
Galingale
Mace
Nutmeg
Cloves (a little light on this one, too)
Cardamom (green, decorticated)
Black peppercorns
White peppercorns
Long pepper (only a little)
Cubeb berries
Grains of Paradise
Coriander
Cumin
Cayenne
Saffron
I think there were a few others, too (think I had 20 when I was done),
but those are the main ones.
I ended up with a LOT of the stuff, which I was making to fill spice
bottles for an event Their Majesties were going to.
You can actually buy it online, Christine (at least, I saw websites that
sold it), but I got the impression it was like a good curry
blend--better made fresh, 'cuz goodness only knows how long the powdered
stuff had been sitting around.
Or you could send me your addy off-list, and I could send you a little
baggie of it.
I'll try to find my links to the websites I found (think they're on my
computer at work), and hopefully post them soon.  They're interesting
from the ethnic/foodie perspective, even if not catering to pre-17th c.
European food.
--maire

Christine Seelye-King wrote:
> 
>  I'll contributed spiced, glazed almonds.  I was playing around this summer,
> trying to come up with fun little food things for Their Majesties, and
> had the odd idea to add Ras el Hanout (a non-rose variety) to the sugar
> instead of cinnamon.  Yummmmmm. Spicey-warm (from the things like
> cinnamon and galingale and cardamom and ginger and long pepper and two
> kinds of pepper-pepper), with just a hint of kick.  And they travel
> nicely!
> --maire, catching up on old emails....
> 
>         So, do you have recipes or ingredients lists for your Ras el Hanout?  (Rose
> and/or non-rose variety?)  I was working with a lamb recipe that called for
> it, but I had other spices and didn't end up using any (didn't know exactly
> what was in it). I did try it out with some mastic I got at Pennsic, boy, a
> little of that goes a very long way.
> Christianna