Skip to main content
Sauce

Tomato Mustard

A preserved tomato-based mustard condiment made with tomatoes, salt, peppers, spices, onions, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes, salt, and red peppers for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add mace, cloves, other spices, and onions to the strained liquid. Boil for another hour.

  4. When cold, mix in the mustard and 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and liquid base of the sauce.
Red peppers
Add heat and sweetness, adding flavor to the boiled base.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body as they cook into the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that persists after the sauce is cooled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Mix in the mustard and vinegar only when cold. Mustard's pungency is volatile and heat dulls it, and vinegar's sharp acidity can taste harsh when hot. Adding them once the mixture has cooled keeps the flavor bright and sharp.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, clove, onion, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, onion, mustard, 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.

More tomato mustard recipes

Sauce 24 See all 49 →

You might also like

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes