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Mustard

A homemade mustard made by mixing flour, water, salt, milk, cream, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Mustard

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard

  1. Mix the best Durham flour of mustard gradually with boiling water until you achieve a proper thickness.

  2. Rub the mixture smooth.

  3. Add a little salt.

  4. Store in a small jar, covered tightly.

Finish for use

  1. For immediate use, mix mustard with new milk until smooth.

  2. Add a little raw cream.

  3. For a sweeter mustard, add a teaspoon of sugar to half a pint of mustard.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Best durham flour of mustard
Provides the pungent flavour and thickens the mixture as it hydrates in hot water.
New milk
Smooths the mustard and mellows its sharpness for immediate use.
Raw cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, balancing the mustard's sharp heat.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with boiling water. Mustard's heat comes from enzymes released when the flour is wet; very hot water can destroy them, so the mustard may end up mild. Adding the water gradually and stirring until smooth gives an even thickness.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, cream, 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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