Catalan Mustard (c. 1324)

[vagreys]

This mustard recipe appears in a Catalan manuscript that dates from at least 1324, and probably a good bit earlier. It is particularly good with roast pork or lamb. Although it isn't like the mustard balls produced in the cathedral city of Winchester, the mustard is quite good. My redaction follows the translated original recipe.

Chapter 162 which tells how our mustard is made

If you wish to make our mustard it is made in this manner. First you will take it, and pound it to a powder or grind it in a mortar, and rub it two or three times, and then temper it with cool broth, and put in honey or sugar, and if you want to make it the French way temper it with vinegar, and you can put in arrop.

Catalan Mustard

� cup yellow mustard seed
� cup chicken broth, at room temperature
1 tablespoon honey or turbinado sugar, or to taste

Grind the mustard seed in a large mortar, spice grinder or coffee grinder. Pass it through a coarse sieve and then a fine sieve. Regrind whatever will not pass through the coarse sieve. Then mix the fine powder and the coarse powder together; you should have about 6 tablespoons. The ground mustard will be coarser and fluffier than fine mustard flour.

Put the ground mustard in a small mixing bowl and stir in 6 tablespoons of the cool chicken broth. Let it stand for a few minutes and stir again. If it seems too thick, add more broth, a little at a time, until it has a good consistency. Stir in the honey or sugar.

The mustard can be prepared ahead and refrigerated until serving time, but it will have the most intense flavor between 10 and 20 minutes after it is mixed.

If you don't want to grind whole mustard seed, then use 6 tablespoons of mustard flour, like Colman's. To do the French style mentioned in the original, substitute (red or white wine) vinegar for the chicken broth. Arrop was a sweet syrup made from reduced grape must. I just use honey or sugar.