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Kentucky Mustard

A mustard condiment made with ground mustard, sugar, butter, salt, boiling water, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Kentucky Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the mustard in boiling water.

  2. Add sugar, melted butter, and salt to the mustard mixture and stir well.

  3. Pour in vinegar until the mixture is as thin as syrup.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 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

Ground mustard
Provides the main body and sharp, pungent flavor of the condiment.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.
Melted butter
Adds fat that gives the mustard a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and thins the mixture to a syrupy consistency.

The step that matters

Pour in vinegar until the mixture is as thin as syrup.. Mustard's pungency develops when ground seed meets liquid, and vinegar then sets its sharpness and thins the paste. Adding vinegar gradually lets you stop at the right thinness, since too much makes the mustard runny and overly sharp.

“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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