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How to Make French Mustard

A homemade French mustard made by boiling yellow mustard with 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

Cook the mustard

  1. Combine mustard, water, and vinegar in a pot, then add salt and calamus root.

  2. Heat the mixture until it boils.

  3. While boiling, stir in flour and continue boiling for 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Just before removing from heat, stir in sugar.

Cool and 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 flavour and sharp pungency of the condiment.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the mustard its tang and sharpness.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as its starch swells while boiling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour while boiling. Flour must be stirred in evenly and constantly. If it is added unevenly it forms lumps that stay in the mustard, and the starch needs steady heat and movement to thicken the mixture smoothly without scorching on the base of the pot.

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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