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French Mustard

A condiment made by steeping onions in cider vinegar, then simmering with sugar, salt, cayenne, and ground mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vinegar

  1. Slice the onion and add it to the cider vinegar.

  2. Let it stand overnight.

  3. Strain the onions from the vinegar and pour the vinegar into a porcelain kettle.

Make the mustard

  1. Add sugar, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper to the vinegar.

  2. Sprinkle in ground mustard until the mixture thickens to a cream‑like consistency.

  3. Stir constantly and cook for 20 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground mustard
Thickens the vinegar into a cream-like consistency and supplies the mustard flavor.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the mustard its sharp, tangy bite.
Onion
Infuses the vinegar overnight with its aroma, then is strained out.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while cooking. Mustard thickens quickly as it heats and can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring keeps heat even and prevents lumps and burnt flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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