Skip to main content
Main

Made Mustard

A mustard paste made with English mustard, oil, vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper, garlic, and oil.

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

Why it works: Mustard and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,053 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Made Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, combine the mustard and salad oil, rubbing with a spoon until absorbed.

  2. Gradually add vinegar to form a stiff paste.

  3. Mix in salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic, working thoroughly.

  4. Continue adding vinegar little by little until the mixture can be beaten like cake batter.

Beat and store

  1. Beat for five minutes vigorously.

  2. Transfer to wide-mouthed bottles, pour a little oil on top, cork tightly, and store in a cool place.

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 + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 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

English mustard
Provides the main flavour and pungent heat that defines the condiment.
Salad oil
Adds fat that coats the mustard particles and gives a smoother, richer texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that wets the mustard powder and activates its pungency.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Continue adding vinegar little by little until the mixture can be beaten like cake batter.. Mustard's heat develops when its powder is moistened and then rests or is beaten; adding all the vinegar at once can make the paste lumpy or too thin to control. Adding it gradually lets you reach a smooth, spreadable consistency.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes