Steenbergs Organic Mace Blades

Steenbergs Organic Mace is a premium spice, sometimes known as blade mace. It is pungent: sweet, camphorous, warming with a fresher taste than nutmeg. It’s a mild spice that goes well with fish, vegetables and meat; either put in a few pieces or crumble up a larger piece and add to a sauce or court bouillon. Mace is essential for fruit cooking and has an affinity to cherries.

Steenbergs sources top quality Organic Mace from Sri Lanka, which is packed in small batches to optimise taste.

Mace comes from the nutmeg tree, Myristica fragrans, which was originally native only to the Banda Islands in Indonesia. Nutmeg trees are a tropical evergreen tree that’s about 10 metres high. When the fruit is ripe, it’s picked and the flesh is cut off the shell, making sure the shiny, blood-red mace on the outside is not removed. The mace aril brings nourishment to the nutmeg seed, clinging tightly to the shell that encases the seed.

The mace is peeled from the nutmeg shell and then dried in the sun in Indonesia for a few hours only and its shiny wet redness dulls to a matt red-orange colour. Whole mace still often has the curved shape of the nutmeg shell and has its characteristic fingered shape.

Axel’s Tasting Notes: Light orangey pink. Sweet, floral, camphorous, warming and fresh.

Food Pairing: Stewed fruit – rhubarb, apple, cherries; pork sausages, terrines and pates; white and cheese sauces. I think mace is truly special with fish and shellfish – to boil salmon trout, king prawns or scallops.