Those of you who, like me, prefer your savouries without sugar in them know how hard it can be to find a good sugarless mustard. One of the simplest solutions to this problem is to buy dry mustard and then make it up yourself.
Or so one might think. Simply adding water to create the desired consistency results in something that should probably be banned under the Geneva Convention, and using vinegar instead – which is said to ameliorate the sharpness – is little better.
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Naturally, in this brave new internetty world, the next thing one does is look up recipes online. These are mostly promulgated by people who are really passionate about food, and it shows. For one thing, many of the recipes need cooking, as though a person wanting a tablespoonful of mustard on their hotdog is going to have the time and inclination to cook a cupful or two of the stuff – not to mention eating hotdogs often enough to get through it all before it goes off.
For another thing, the ingredients are frequently inconvenient. Half a cupful of white wine, for example – which more or less assumes that you’re either the kind of person who always has a bottle open, or the kind who doesn’t mind opening a whole bottle in order to put a fraction of it in their mustard. Two tablespoonfuls of creme fraiche, say – assuming that a) you have some of that always on hand, and b) you know what that is. (Pas moi.) Three teaspoons of distilled unicorn tears, gathered under the full of the moon when Pisces is in retrograde, or something like that.
And this may be all very well if a) you are having a dinner party; b) your dinner guest is Gordon Ramsay; and c) you are planning on asking him for his daughter’s hand in marriage before the night is out. For those of us lesser mortals who just want something flavourful on their hotdogs, and aren’t prepared to trade an hour or two of their life for it, here is the result of my experimentations, a colourful, tasty, sugarless mustard, requiring no short-life products to be opened in its honour, and not in contravention of the Geneva Convention.
Take a small bowl – really small. Miniature teacup size. Whatever you put soy sauce in when you’re dipping things in soy sauce. (If you are not dipping things in soy sauce, why not? Reconsider your life choices.)
Into this bowl, put
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder,
1/4 teaspoon of turmeric,
1/4 teaspoon of paprika,
1 teaspoon cornflour,
and a pinch of salt.
Stir.
Add 1 teaspoon of malt vinegar.
Stir some more. If it’s too thick, add a drop more malt vinegar.
Serve at once, or leave it to stand while you cook the hotdogs.
Done. Of course, this can be a leaping-off point for your own experimentation, if you are that way inclined. If you just want some mustard in five minutes, no fuss, this’ll do the job.
If perchance you are already an own-mustard aficionado, do feel free to add your tips, tricks, and dire warnings to the comment section.