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Sauce

Prepared Mustard

A thickened mustard sauce made with mustard, flour, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,066 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Prepared Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the mustard and flour together while dry.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the strong mustard and enough water to fill two-thirds of a teacup.

  3. Stir in the flour and mustard mixture.

  4. Boil until thickened to a custard-like consistency.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 it heats, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Strong mustard
Provides the main sharp mustard flavour and the base of the sauce.
Mustard
Adds more mustard flavour and pungency to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until thickened to a custard-like consistency. Flour needs to reach a boil to swell and gelatinize fully; stopping early leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin sauce. Stir constantly to avoid lumps.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. 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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