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Table Mustard

A condiment made by boiling vinegar, salt, sugar, butter, mustard, and cold vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Table Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 1 cup of vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Add butter the size of an egg while boiling.

  4. Mix 1 cup of mustard with enough cold vinegar to wet it.

  5. Add the mustard mixture to the boiling vinegar and boil for a moment.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 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

Mustard
Provides the main flavour and the sharp pungency that defines the condiment.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the mustard its tang and keeps it shelf-stable.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished mustard.

The step that matters

Add the mustard mixture to the boiling vinegar. Mustard loses pungency when heated, so the mixture should be added and boiled only briefly. Cold vinegar wets the powder first so it doesn't clump when it meets the hot liquid.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, butter, egg. 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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