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Sauce

Mustard

A homemade mustard condiment made with mustard flour, water, vinegar, wine, spices, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard cream

  1. Mix mustard flour with cold water and salt to form a thick cream.

Thicken and flavour

  1. In a saucepan, combine tarragon and cider vinegars and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar mixture into the mustard cream and stir until thickened.

  3. Simmer for a few minutes, adding white wine, celery seeds, whole spices, garlic, and sugar.

  4. Stir well and let cool before serving.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tarragon + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard flour
Provides the main mustard flavour and forms the thick body of the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a sharp, aromatic flavour that balances the mustard.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the mustard.
White wine
Adds mild acidity and depth of flavour during simmering.
Celery seeds
Contribute a savoury, aromatic flavour to the mustard.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture into the mustard cream and stir until thickened. Mustard flour thickens as it combines with the hot liquid, but stirring unevenly can leave lumps. Adding the hot vinegar gradually while stirring keeps the cream smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, flour, tarragon, vinegar, cider, white wine, celery):

  1. Fennelfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, flour, tarragon, vinegar, cider, white wine, celery. 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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