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Sauce

Table Mustard

A simple mustard sauce made with dry mustard, flour, brown sugar, butter, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Table Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sift the dry mustard and flour together.

  2. Add brown sugar, butter, and a pinch of salt.

  3. Stir in the boiling vinegar until a smooth paste forms.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Dry mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it combines with the hot liquid.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the sauce.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness, and hydrates the flour to form the paste.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiling vinegar. Flour must be fully wetted and stirred smooth as the hot liquid is added, or lumps will form. Starch thickens the sauce only once it is hydrated and heated, so stirring keeps the paste even.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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