Skip to main content
Main

Mustard

A thick mustard condiment made with mustard powder, flour, and anchovy sauce, boiled with shallots, vinegar, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. In a basin, combine mustard powder, flour, and salt.

  2. Add boiling water to make a stiff paste.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil shallots with vinegar, ketchup, and anchovy sauce for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the paste in the basin and stir well.

  3. Reduce to a proper thickness.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle with a bruised shallot at the bottom.

  2. Store for use; it keeps well for years.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard powder
Provides the pungent, sharp flavour that defines the condiment.
Flour
Thickens the mixture into a stiff paste with body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the mustard.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tomato body to the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute mild onion aroma to the boiled mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling mixture over the paste and stir well. Hot liquid must be fully worked into the flour-based paste so it hydrates and thickens evenly. Unstirred pockets stay raw and dry, leaving lumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, shallot, vinegar, ketchup, anchovy, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, shallot, vinegar, ketchup, anchovy, sauce. 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.

More mustard recipes

Pickles 151Sauce 119French 50Tomato 49Pickle 39Tartar 34 See all 56 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes