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How to Mix Mustard
Mustard should always be mixed with water that has been boiled and allowed to cool. Put the mustard in a cup with a pinch of salt, and mix with it, gradually, sufficient boiled but cold water to make it drop from a spoon without being watery. Stir and mix well and rub away all lumps with the back of a spoon. The mustard-pot should not be over half full, as mustard is better when freshly made.
This is table mustard made from dry mustard flour, the way it was sold and mixed at home before jarred prepared mustard was universal. The instruction that matters most is the temperature of the water.
- Why cool water, not hotMustard's heat is created only when the powder meets liquid: an enzyme in the seed acts on a precursor compound to release the pungent isothiocyanates. Hot water destroys the enzyme, so the paste comes out flat and bitter instead of sharp. Why the water was to be boiled first is not stated; the cooling is the part that matters.
- What to buyUse plain mustard flour or dry mustard powder, such as English mustard powder. Do not use a blend already containing flour, turmeric and sugar, and do not use whole seed, which will not hydrate into a smooth paste.
- Let it standThe recipe does not say to wait, but the reaction takes about 10 minutes. Mix it, leave it uncovered at room temperature for that long, and it will reach full strength.
- And use it soonThis is the reason for the half-full pot. Water-mixed mustard is at its sharpest soon after mixing and loses pungency over a few hours, turning bitter and dull by the next day. Mix a spoonful or two at a time.
- Consistency"Drop from a spoon without being watery" is about the thickness of heavy cream; roughly equal volumes of powder and water gets you there. Add the water in stages, since the powder swells as it absorbs.
- YieldOne tablespoon of mustard flour makes a scant two tablespoons of paste.
- If you want it to keepReplacing part of the water with vinegar, white wine or verjuice slows the reaction and stabilises the flavour, which is how commercial jarred mustard stays usable. It also mutes the fierce top note this version is made for.
Mustard flour is one of the oldest condiments in the English kitchen, and until the twentieth century it was normally bought as a dry powder and mixed at the table or in the pantry, which is why a general cookbook needed to explain the procedure at all. The fine-milled flour that makes this method possible is traditionally credited to a Mrs Clements of Durham in the early eighteenth century, though the story is often repeated and rarely documented; the trade was certainly dominated by Durham and later by Norwich, where Colman's built its business on mustard flour sold in tins. The half-full mustard pot in the last sentence is a small piece of period table culture: the pot lived on the table with its own spoon.