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Sauce

Mustard Butter

A butter-based spread made with English and French mustard, vinegar, chutney, and finely chopped chutney.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Mustard Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the chutney finely.

  2. Pound all the ingredients together.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

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. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and a smooth, spreadable body that carries the other flavours.
English mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the butter its main flavour.
French mustard
Adds a milder mustard flavour and extra sharpness to the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter.
Chutney
Adds sweetness and fruity tang that softens the mustard's bite.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks up any remaining lumps of chutney and fine solids, so the butter ends up smooth and evenly flavoured.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar. 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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