Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
To Make Mustard
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the best flour of mustard gradually with boiling water until it reaches a proper thickness, rubbing it smooth.
Add a little salt and store in a small jar with a tight lid.
For immediate use, mix mustard with new milk gradually until smooth, then add a little raw cream.
Add a tea-spoonful of sugar to half a pint of mustard for improved flavor.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + teatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together738 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,066 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, cream, tea, sugar):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatofits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, cream, tea, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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