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French Mustard

A mustard condiment made with mustard flour, herbs, anchovies, and wine vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

French Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grind the mustard flour, parsley, chervil, celery, tarragon, and garlic together until well combined.

  2. Add the salt and chopped anchovies, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Add grape juice or sugar to sweeten, then enough water to form a thin paste.

Pot and seal

  1. Transfer the mixture into pots and briefly insert a red hot iron into each pot.

  2. Add a little wine vinegar to each pot before sealing.

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.

  1. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mustard flour
Provides the pungent mustard flavour and the bulk of the paste.
Salt anchovies
Add savoury depth and salt that seasons the whole paste.
Garlic
Adds sharp aromatic pungency to the mixture.
Grape juice or sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the mustard.
Wine vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the mustard.

The step that matters

Thin to a paste with water. Mustard flavour comes from enzymes releasing compounds when the flour is moistened, and the heat of the mustard fades over time. Adding the right amount of water to form a thin paste lets those reactions proceed evenly and keeps the texture spreadable.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, flour, parsley, chervil, celery, tarragon, garlic):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, flour, parsley, chervil, celery, tarragon, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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