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French Tomato Mustard

A tomato-based mustard condiment made with tomatoes, onions, peppers, sugar, salt, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes and onions finely.

  2. Boil the chopped tomatoes and onions for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the boiled tomatoes and onions through a colander.

Make the mustard

  1. Add the brown sugar, coarse sea salt, and 2 pints of vinegar.

  2. Reserve 1 pint of vinegar to mix with the mustard.

  3. When boiling hard, add the finely mixed mustard.

  4. Once it thickens, add the finely chopped red peppers.

  5. Bottle the mixture while hot.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the mustard and supply moisture, body and tangy flavour.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they cook down into the base.
Red peppers
Add colour and mild sweet flavour to the finished mixture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the condiment.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the mustard to boiling mixture. Mustard must be fully mixed smooth before it goes in, and the mixture must be boiling hard. Uneven mixing leaves lumps, and adding it to a weak boil can stop the mixture thickening properly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, sugar, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, sugar, mustard, 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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