Skip to main content
Sauce

Tartar Mustard

A mustard condiment made with Durham mustard, horseradish vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartar Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard

  1. In a bowl, rub the Durham mustard until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the strong horseradish vinegar until well combined.

  3. Stir in the coarse sea salt and cayenne or Chili vinegar.

Rest and flavor

  1. For extra flavor, steep the scraped horseradish in boiling vinegar overnight, covered.

  2. For best results, let the mixture sit for 2-3 days before using.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Durham mustard
Provides the main mustard flavor and the paste's body.
Strong horseradish vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and liquid to loosen the mustard into a paste.
Scraped horseradish
Adds pungent aroma and heat that develops as it steeps.
Cayenne or chili vinegar
Adds heat and acidity that brighten the mustard's flavor.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mustard until smooth before adding vinegar. Mustard flavor comes from enzymes released when ground seed is moistened, and the paste needs even mixing so the vinegar is absorbed without lumps. Adding liquid too fast can leave dry clumps that taste unevenly sharp.

“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

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesHorseradish Cream SauceHorseradish Cream Sauce6 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipes