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How to Make French Mustard

A homemade mustard made with yellow mustard, water, vinegar, salt, calamus root, flour, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

How to Make French Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard

  1. In a pot, combine the mustard, water, and vinegar.

  2. Add the salt and calamus root.

  3. Heat the mixture until it boils.

  4. While boiling, stir in the flour and continue to boil for 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Just before removing from heat, stir in the sugar.

Bottle

  1. Allow to cool, then transfer to bottles and seal tightly.

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. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Mustard + sugartop 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

Yellow mustard
Provides the main mustard flavor and pungency that defines the condiment.
Flour
Thickens the boiling liquid so the mustard becomes a smooth, spreadable paste.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness and acidity that balances the heat of the mustard.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that softens the sharp, acidic bite.

The step that matters

Stirring while the flour is added and boiled. Flour added to hot liquid clumps easily unless stirred constantly; it must boil long enough for its starch to thicken and lose its raw taste. Stirring keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the calamus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, vinegar, flour, sugar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Calamusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, vinegar, flour, sugar. 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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