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Trepared Mustard

A vinegar-based mustard sauce made with flour, mustard, salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Trepared Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 1 pint of vinegar in a pot.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with a little cold vinegar.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of ground mustard, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and ⅓ teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the flour mixture.

  4. Stir the mixture well and add it to the boiling vinegar.

  5. If the mustard is too thick, add a little cold vinegar to adjust the consistency.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the liquid base and sharp acidity that gives prepared mustard its tang.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it becomes a spreadable, smooth consistency.
Ground mustard
Supplies the main mustard flavor and pungency.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the boiling vinegar. Flour must be fully blended into cold vinegar first so it does not clump. Starch thickens as it heats, so stirring well when it meets the boiling liquid keeps the mustard smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, sugar, pepper. 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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