Skip to main content
Baking

Common Mustard

A homemade mustard made by mixing vinegar, ground mustard, sugar, and cloves, then boiling and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Common Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard

  1. Gradually mix the vinegar into the ground mustard.

  2. Add cloves for flavor.

  3. Boil the mixture over moderate heat.

  4. Add the sugar and boil again.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle and seal 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. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Ground mustard
Provides the pungent flavor and thick body once hydrated into a paste.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness and acidity, and its liquid hydrates the mustard powder.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cloves
Contributes a warm, aromatic flavor to the mustard.

The step that matters

Gradually mix the vinegar into the ground mustard. Adding the liquid slowly lets each particle of mustard powder absorb it evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth paste.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, 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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes