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Mustard Cream

A thickened mustard and cream sauce flavored with salt and vinegar.

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, mix together the mustard, salt, sweet cream, and eggs.

  2. Cook the mixture in the double boiler until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the hot vinegar.

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. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Mustard + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,935 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Their proteins set when gently heated, thickening the sauce into a smooth, spoonable body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a mellow, rounded body that softens the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.
Mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour and helps keep the sauce emulsified.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts through its richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture in the double boiler. Eggs thicken as their proteins set, but high heat makes them scramble and curdle. Gentle, indirect heat from the double boiler lets the mixture thicken smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, 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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