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Sauce

Made Mustard

A simple mustard sauce made with mustard, sugar, salt, vinegar, and egg.

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 ↓

Made Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine mustard, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add vinegar and egg, then stir well.

  3. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it comes to a boil.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts through richness.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, creamy body.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture with the egg. Egg proteins set and thicken when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or is heated too fast, the egg can scramble and curdle. Stir constantly over medium heat so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, egg. 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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