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Prepared Mustard

A condiment made by combining sugar, salt, oil, ground mustard, vinegar, and optional boiling water.

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 ↓

Prepared Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the sugar, fine salt, and salad oil in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

  2. Mix the ground mustard with enough vinegar to achieve a thin consistency.

  3. Combine the mustard mixture with the sugar mixture.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, add a little boiling water to thin it out.

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 + 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

Ground mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines prepared mustard.
Vinegar
Thins the mustard and adds acidity that sharpens its heat.
Salad oil
Adds fat that gives the mixture a smoother, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Mixing the mustard with vinegar. Ground mustard's heat develops when its enzymes meet liquid, and acid from vinegar slows that reaction. Adding the liquid gradually keeps the consistency even and the flavour controlled.

“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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