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Sauce

French Mustard

A thickened mustard sauce made with vinegar, mustard, sugar, flour, and egg yolk.

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

French Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine vinegar, mustard, sugar, and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk until well combined.

Cool and store

  1. Allow to cool, then store in a covered container.

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. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, tangy flavor.
Mustard
Supplies the main pungent flavor and some emulsifying help for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as it heats and gives the sauce body.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture while stirring constantly. Flour thickens only when heated and stirred, and constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan. Stirring also keeps the mixture even so it thickens smoothly before the egg yolk is added.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, flour, 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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