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Sauce

Mustard Sauce

A sauce made with sugar, butter, mustard, vinegar, and eggs, boiled until creamy.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Mix all ingredients together.

  3. Pour the mixture into a new tin dish.

  4. Boil in water until it reaches a creamy consistency (do not thicken).

Finish and serve

  1. Strain through a thin cloth before serving.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 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

Eggs
Egg proteins set when heated, thickening the sauce and giving it a creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a tangy, sharp taste.
Butter
Adds fat, which contributes richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and aroma that give the sauce its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Boil gently until creamy, without thickening. Egg proteins set when heated. Too much heat or too long a boil can overcook them, causing lumps or a grainy texture instead of a smooth, creamy sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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