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Mustard Sauce to Be Served with String Beans or Wax Beans

A mustard-based sauce made with dry mustard, margarine, flour, vinegar, and water, served cold with string or wax beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mustard Sauce to Be Served with String Beans or Wax Beans

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the margarine in a saucepan.

  2. Add the dry mustard and flour, stirring until well blended.

  3. Gradually add the vinegar and water to achieve the desired thickness.

  4. Serve cold as a garnish for hot string or wax beans.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the liquid.
Dry mustard
Adds the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Fortified margarine
Provides fat that coats the flour and gives a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the fat.
Water
Supplies the liquid that, with the flour, sets the final thickness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the vinegar and water. Flour starch clumps if liquid is poured in all at once. Adding it slowly while stirring lets each portion disperse before the starch swells, giving a smooth sauce that thickens evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, vinegar. 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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