Name: To Make Mustard
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons mustard; ½ teaspoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon melted butter; boiling vinegar

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make Mustard

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Boil some vinegar.
In a bowl, mix 4 tablespoons of mustard, ½ teaspoon of sugar, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of melted butter.
Stir well until combined.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,424 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,003 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).