Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons dehydrated orange zest
- 2 tablespoons powdered dehydrated ginger root
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Open a window and keep your face clear of the grinder lid when you lift it. Cayenne dust hangs in the air and it finds your eyes before it finds your nose.
- Grind the dried ginger root on its own first. It dries fibrous rather than brittle, and those fibres wind around a blade and stop anything else circulating.
- Put the orange zest through in a second pass, using short bursts. Zest carries oil, oil warms under a running blade, and warm oil turns a rub into a paste stuck to the wall of the jar.
- Stir the cayenne through by hand instead of grinding it in. It is already a powder, and sending it through the mill only spreads it onto surfaces you will touch later.
- Stop at a coarse grind with some texture left in it. This is pressed onto a wet surface rather than stirred into a sauce, and anything milled too fine slides straight off chicken skin.
- Let it reach room temperature before it goes into a jar. Friction warms a spice mill more than people expect, and warm powder sealed in glass condenses against the sides.
- A small jar kept dark holds its bite for about three months. Ginger fades slowly but citrus oil does not, so when the rub smells hot without smelling of orange it is time to make more.
