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French Mustard

A mustard condiment made with English mustard, water, vinegar, flour, sugar, salt, and calamus root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

French Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the mustard, vinegar, and water.

  2. Add the salt and the pinch of calamus root.

  3. Heat the mixture until it boils, then add the flour.

  4. Boil for twenty minutes, stirring continuously.

  5. Just before removing from heat, stir in the sugar.

Store

  1. Once cool, transfer to small wide-mouth bottles and seal tightly.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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. Flour + sugartop 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. 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

Mustard
Provides the main flavour and pungency of the condiment.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it boils, giving the mustard a smooth, spreadable body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the mustard tangy.
Powdered sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil for twenty minutes, stirring continuously. Flour thickens only when it is heated and stirred, and stirring keeps it from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pan. Stopping early or leaving it unstirred can leave lumps or a thin, grainy texture.

Swap the calamus

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Calamusthe original

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

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