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Sauce

Mustard Sauce

A thickened sauce made from egg yolks, acid jelly, mustard, butter, vinegar, black pepper, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of two eggs.

  2. Mix in the acid jelly, black pepper, mixed mustard, butter, and vinegar.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Finish

  1. Once cool, stir in the catsup.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Mixed mustard
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that defines the sauce.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and tang to round out the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk mixture over low heat. Egg yolk proteins thicken as they warm, but if the heat is too high they curdle and turn grainy. Low heat with constant stirring lets the sauce thicken evenly and stay smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, 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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