Name: To Make Mustard
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons mustard; ½ teaspoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ cup vinegar; 1 tablespoon melted butter

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 ↓

To Make Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the vinegar.
In a bowl, mix the mustard, sugar, and salt.
Add the boiled vinegar and melted butter to the mixture.
Stir well until combined.

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.

Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,424 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,003 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 sharp, pungent flavor and the bulk of the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Sugar: Softens the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar with mild sweetness.
Butter: Adds fat that gives the mustard a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.

“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.