Gourmet Files: As keen as mustard

Just a wee bit of ground mustard can transform a dish. Why you should try it.

Splutter: A spoonful will do. Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

It's difficult to find a meat eater who likes chicken very much; the first option is usually mutton or fish. And this despite the fact that chicken — with the proliferation of poultry farms — has become so easy of access. Even the neighbourhood shop stocks it, cleaned and boned. Unlike mutton, for which we schlep across town to favourite butchers, halal or jhatka , stand there and have it cleaned and cut with minute directions. So the other night I was surprised to find that Anita had cooked chicken for some of us friends that she'd invited for dinner. And it was consumed in large quantities, ignoring the 20 other choices. She had made it with mustard. She had used chicken drumsticks — although breasts would do equally well — which were a pale gold, half immersed in, and half out of an oily yellow sauce, with a long green chilli visible here and there.

Shooting flavour

With boiled rice, a smidgen of gravy sent enough sharp, keen flavour shooting up one's nose to clear the sinuses. The meat itself was tender and flavourful, hardly recognisable as the bogus, bland paneer-like chicken one usually gets, because the mustard had flavoured it thoroughly. Also, she had given the masala a chance to permeate by cooking the dish a day earlier.

It was possibly a variation on the more familiar Bengali

shorshe maachh , fish in mustard sauce, which contains more or less the same spices — in fact some shorshe maachh is made with just ground mustard seeds and green chillies, and, of course, turmeric — and some with the same onions and garlic — as the chicken. Turmeric is a constant in both, and apparently is added even in American mustard, as applied to hot dogs.

Mustard, unlike other spices, is important in Europe, possibly because it grows locally and is cheap. Mustard was cultivated even in ancient times: There are historical references to its cultivation in Greece from the 5th century BC. There are broadly three varieties; Sinapis alba , whose seeds are tan or yellowish ( peeli sarson ); Brassica nigra , which yields what is commonly known as black mustard ( sarson ); and Brassica juncea , with small, reddish brown seeds ( rai ).

Medieval European courts often had a “mustardarius”, whose job it was to supervise the growing and preparation of mustard. In the middle of the 14th century, around Dijon in France, “made” French mustard was perfected. Monsieur Grey established Grey, now Grey Poupon, which makes strong and pale yellow mustard. Bordeaux mustard is mild and brown, with a hint of vinegar and sometimes sugar and tarragon or other herbs.

Dry form

Although Jeremiah Colman's Colman is now better known, the process of dry milling it — “made” dry mustard is the base of English mustard — was perfected by Mrs. Clements in Tewkesbury. And when it became easily available, Keen and Sons of London became the best known brand. Thence the phrase, “as keen as mustard”. In any case, “as colman as...” or “as clements as mustard” wouldn't quite have cut the mustard.