539: Oh My, It’s a Great Talk About Dijon Mustard

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I mean, call me crazy, but I feel like you should have at least three to four styles of Tishon mustard in your refrigerator. Yeah. Because, I mean, you need whole grain, you got your hot honey, you got your classic, and there's just so many different things you can do. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rothbard.

0:59Today's episode is all about Dijon mustard and brings a couple of mustard lovers into the studio. First up is Jeremy Solomon. He's the chef owner of two singular and sensational restaurants in Brooklyn, Agui's Counter and the newly opened Pits. We talk about what he's been cooking and all the creative ways he thinks about using Dijon mustard, even in dessert. Next up is a real treat. We get to talk with a mustard sommelier. His name is Brandon Collins, and he helps develop recipes for my mustard, which is honestly one of my personal favorite brands. Brandon takes us through some of the company's history before giving us a taste of some rare Dijons.

1:43He brought mustards to the studio. It was so great. I hope you enjoy these conversations.

1:58Jeremy Solomon, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Well, Jeremy, before we get into some serious mustard talk, I have to ask you about Pitts, which is your second restaurant you just opened in Red Hook. I'm such a fan of Augie's Counter. It was one of my favorite restaurants that opened recently, and I just, you've had you on the show in the past. But tell me about your new restaurant. Very exciting. You're in a great space in Red Hook. Tell me a little bit about it. Yeah, so we just opened. We're in a corner location on Van Brun Street, if you know Red Hook.

2:32And it is right now where we opened up with dinner and a bar and the narrative leans away from Eastern European cuisine, which is what Aggie's Counter is really rooted in and known for. And this explores more of my southern roots and experiences while also pairing it with some French cuisine and Americana, if you will. Yeah, it's a quirky space. It's fun. It's eclectic. Like it's just like it's kind of like as our slogan says, it's a joyful mess. Talk about some of the dishes on it. And maybe if mustard has a little bit of a mix, a little cameo dish on mustard. It absolutely does. We have on our appetizer list, we have a cold meatloaf tea sandwich.

3:19So essentially it's a pork pate with pork belly, liver and and fat back. It's we chill it. So all that like the juices kind of get congealed. We slice it up, goes on really fluffy white sandwich bread, and then it gets Dijon mustard. It's going to get a little bit of mayo, a onion jam, and then it gets crusted like in a wreath of parsley, like little tea time sandwiches. I bet it's gorgeous. And it's been selling really well. People really dig it. So exciting. I can't wait to visit Pitts. Well, let's jump right in. So when did you first realize that Dijon-style mustard can be used across so much cooking, both at home and in restaurants?

4:02Yeah. I mean, I feel like I was exposed to mustard at a very early age. And I mean, my parents used to take me to diners in South Florida, and my father would always order a side of mustard or Dijon mustard with his turkey club for just dipping. Like, so there'd be mustard in the sandwich, but also extra mustard for. So it was just really instilled in me that you should always have mustard with maybe literally everything, even French fries. I mean, we were not a ketchup household. it was always either mustard or Dijon mustard with your French fries. So I feel like from an early age, that was the beginning.

4:41That was my humble mustard beginning. Dijon mustard was flowing through your business in many ways. I really wanted to have you in to ask you this simple question. Can you describe the flavor of Dijon mustard in like a way that I know you think about flavor profiles as a chef, but, you know, expand my mind about the flavor of Dijon. Oh, wow. Well, I'm no mustard Somme. so we'll definitely hear from the mustard psalm well i think first you can need that the punch kind of like the the the zestiness the the pepperyness um i think about the episode of the nanny where fran drescher eats she eats wasabi it wasn't mustard but she kind of falls off her her her stool and all of a sudden her nasal like passageways are cleared up and i feel like that's what you want from mustard, from Dijon mustard.

5:31You want like your nasal passageways to just like breathe and like it should be spicy and savory, umami. I don't know. To me, that's like, that's what a mustard profile would be. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good, good, good way to say, you know, it does, it wakes you up, but it also excites with all the glutamates and those, those, those really like spiky flavors. And then, so let's talk about, you know, going from youth into working professionally as a chef, you know, what are some fun ways that you've cooked with Dijon mustard? And maybe are there some surprising applications for Dijon?

6:10Yeah, some of the surprising ways that I have cooked with Dijon mustard. Well, I mean, that's a career's worth of recipes that I have to go back to. But I feel like the most that I have used Dijon has always been in stews and braises. Definitely like a rabbit stew I've used Dijon in or chicken stew. And then I feel like, you know, obviously sandwiches, I use it with everything. I'm dipping in it. I'm putting it in the layers. So I feel like there's multiple ways to use mustard, but I kind of have to rack my brain about it. Yeah, yeah. You're thinking stews and braises are great. And I got to ask you, you spent some serious time working at prune uh which you know legendary prune and i have to believe that prune used a little mustard just just knowing that restaurant a bit yeah yeah she used um gabrielle used a quite a bit of of dijon i know um with the triscuits and the dijon mustard and then the the the sardines um yeah and then also in i know that she used it in braises as well So it was pretty versatile.

7:18Yeah, I love that memory of that Triscuit. You know, she was doing Tim Fish a minute ago. Ahead of her time. Ahead of her time. But did you have Dijon, you know, available for specials? I mean, was it being integrated? I just think of her cooking as being mustard heavy in some ways, just from memories. Yeah, lots of dressings had them. Even like the bechamel sauce, I think, had had it. Like any cream based sauce, there was a little bit of mustard in it. And also there was mustard in like a couple of fish dishes that I remember. So, yeah, there was definitely it was it ran through the veins of the restaurant.

7:56I love that. So when you think about cooking with hot honey Dijon and we're really hot honey pilled here in our society. I mean, it's really everywhere. And, you know, we're really hot honey pilled these days and you see it showing up everywhere, including with my you have a hot honey version of my, which I think is really terrific when hot honey is integrated into Dijon. You know, what comes to mind as a chef when you're given hot honey Dijon? So when I think of hot honey Dijon, I think of two things. One, I think of pigs in a blanket. Whoa, bro. You know, marrying, you know, like, well, I feel like hot honey Dijon is like, it's American French.

8:37And then I think, you know, pigs in a blanket are so classically American. And so I don't know, for me, that would be like the ultimate kind of dipping pairing for that. And then I also think of the fried country captain pussan that we have at Pitts, which is my new restaurant. Yeah. Because I've been exploring different condiments. This is the first time I really have made fried like chicken or fried pussan in a large format like this. So I'm eating it every day and I'm trying different dipping accoutrements with it. Oh, man, I love this country captain. Yeah. Talk about that dish. What's in it?

9:16Yeah, so it's a rifan country captain chicken, which is almost like this curry-like stew that's known in the south with all these different spices. So we buttermilk, brine our poisson, then we fry it, and then it gets the same spices that are in country captain. So there's cardamom and turmeric and et cetera, other spices. and then it's served with a carrot ginger salad. But I've been eating it every day of my life and definitely have had it with Dijon. Yeah, sounds like a delicious dish. So tell me about buying mustard for the home kitchen. What do you look for? And tell me what excites you about Mai.

9:57I know it's a brand that you've used and loved in the past and really let's shift it to the home kitchen. Yeah, well, I think every home cook should have a variety of Dijon and mustard in their home. I mean, there's mustard for literally every occasion. And I know that, you know, at Aggie's Counter, we've used my as our mustard for the tuna melt, which is a daytime dish that we're known for. and I definitely keep a jar at home to make tuna salad, to make a tuna melt. So that can translate from restaurant to home. And yeah, I mean, you should be having it. I mean, call me crazy, but I feel like you should have at least three to four styles of Dishon mustard in your refrigerator.

10:50Yeah. Because I mean, you need whole grain, you got your hot honey, you've got your classic and there's just so many different things you can do. I love that. Because I think there's definitely a wide, you know, expansive universe for Dijon. You know, as you said, it's not just the smooth version we may be mostly familiar with. But I love when it's a little bit chunkier and you can get some mustard seeds in there. Yeah. Just it's a little sometimes I think that's better. How do you think about cooking with that textured mustard? Yeah. I mean, I, you know, like a whole grain mustard is is can be used in various ways.

11:23I mean, we whip it into a butter and make a mustard butter. that also gets my Dijon as well. And some white pepper, black pepper, and then we schmear it on top of a lamb chop, or mutton chop, sorry, at Pitt. So I feel like it gives you that kind of nice pop. There's also this sourness, like tanginess to it that I think really marries well with like a fatty, you know, protein or butter. Great, great, great, Rek. I mean, can you use Dijon in dessert? Yeah, why not? Make a Dijon ice cream. And I say it so casually. Oh yeah, why not? Get your Paco Jet, get your homemaker. No, I'm sorry. No, no, it sounds cool.

12:09Tell me about it. I mean, I've only ever made mustard ice cream once. And it wasn't, it's also, the Dijon doesn't have to be the star of it necessarily, but it can be there to accent and help along flavors. I think paired with vanilla is actually quite an interesting combo and delicious. And I don't think it's something that people should shy away from. Jeremy, on This Is Taste, we asked guests about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. French Dijon mustard edition. Are you ready? I am. Let's do it. Your favorite way to use mustard in a salad?

12:51My favorite way to use mustard in a salad would be in a really creamy dressing, like a buttermilk dressing. Lots of mustard, maybe even multiple mustards, throw in the whole grain, throw in some honey. Maybe like a trifecta of delicious mustard creaminess. Love that. Your favorite way to use mustard when cooking meat? Marinate in mustard. Definitely marinate your chicken in mustard and some spices and aromatics. I think it helps develop like a really beautiful crust. It also can help tenderize it. So I think that's a great way to use it. A flavor that pairs with mustard that might surprise some people.

13:35Maple syrup. I've never heard of it. Yeah. This is cool. I can say confidently that it is a superb pairing. I think most people are like, what do you use it on? And I would probably use it with a pork chop. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Mustard pork chop. They're bedfellows in the best way possible. And a little bit of sweetness from the maple goes a long way. Delicious. Last one, your favorite way to use mustard on a sandwich? Both on it and on the side. I would say on the side mostly because I just love to dip copious amounts of mustard onto the very corner of the sandwich because the more mustard, the merrier.

14:16Well said. Jeremy Salmon, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thanks for having me.

14:29Brandon Collins, we are here. You're a mustard sommelier. Yeah. Yeah. It's a term I didn't think existed either. So did you make it up or was it something? So the brand actually, Antoine Cloud Mai in the 1700s actually said that whenever he opened boutiques, he wanted to have a mustard sommelier in every one of his boutiques. It didn't really come to fruition until about 2008, 2009, whenever my predecessor actually developed the training program. And then whenever I started with the company, they were like, hey, do you want to do this? And I was like, sure. Sign me up, obviously. Let's do it. OK, so what does the job entail exactly?

15:11So one, it's part kind of brand ambassador, right? The understand of what my is and where it came from. And the other is understanding that mustard is very nuanced, right? And there's so much more to it than just the condiment, right? It's an ingredient. There are also vegetables. It's the grandfather of a lot of the vegetables in the Brasica family, right? So think Brussels sprouts and cabbage. Garlic mustard is one of the most original condiments and seasonings that we know of. It's over 3 ,000 years that we have documented usage of it. So it's kind of a little bit of everything. I'm a historian.

15:46I understand the different nuances of all the mustards. Well, not all of them. There's still always training involved as with any wine sommelier or water sommelier or whatever other sommeliers exist. And also kind of out there preaching the gospel of how great mustard is and just delicious. Yeah, mustard is great. We just heard from Jeremy. We heard about from a chef's point of view. You're a chef as well, but you're more, you know, obviously work across many different disciplines. and do you work in like the R &D for like new mustards? Yes. Yeah. So one of the things as we go through the process of developing new flavors, it is something that I influence as much as I possibly can.

16:28But I also rely on our R &D counterparts who are way smarter than I am or much more intelligent than me, I guess is the best way, that understands how the different flavor molecules and things will interact with the mustards and how to make them delicious as we go through. Sometimes I'm like, hey, I think this would be amazing. And they just look at me like I'm insane. And then sometimes I'm like, hey, this may not taste great at all. And they're like, no, no, no, that works perfect. So especially over in Europe, we have some amazing, amazing flavors that are just insane. And I would love to bring them all here to the States, but it's not to be currently.

17:05Well, I'm sure you're heading over to, you know, Dijon. Yes. quite a bit. Yeah. Going to the big mustard land. Yeah. The home, right? The home. Where mustard began, in my eyes now. Dijon is such an amazing place, right? It's especially the mustard capital you have, and then you have Bonne, right? Which is kind of like the wine capital of Burgundy. And then you have Lyon, which is basically the food capital of Burgundy. So you have this kind of beautiful little triangle. But Dijon being the county seat of Burgundy as well, you kind of really get a feel for why mustard grows there so well. The red vines that grow the grapes that make some of the best wines in the world, they grow in a very like rocky clay ridden soil.

17:50And mustard grows extremely well in that environment. So they were able to kind of literally grow grapes on one side and mustard on the other, and then be able to turn that into this amazing condiment that goes so well with the wines that they produce in the region. And it's just an absolutely beautiful area. I mean, the harmony between wine and mustard is obvious. I mean, there's a real agricultural root to it. Yes. It's almost like what grows together goes together, right? Mustard and wine go extremely well together. We say that all the time on the show. I think that's such a great reminder of how you should think about pairing.

18:27And I want to go back a little bit about my history and tell me, you know, how did it go from being a small product in Dijon to being in lots of stores, being my favorite mustard on the shelf? I've been buying it probably since I started buying groceries. You get your first apartment, you're like, I got to get my jar of my, like, obviously. It's the one mustard that I've kind of eaten growing up even in Ohio. Like it was not something that, it wasn't something that every house had, But so, again, we started over 250 years ago, 1747, is whenever Antoine Claude Mai actually kind of started the brand.

19:06And then, you know, as we go out through history, it became the mustard of kings and queens, the king of England, queen of England, the czars of Russia, Catherine the Great, and obviously the kings and queens of Burgundy, right? So, which the king of France actually was trying to curry favor with because they actually had more money. The Dukes of Burgundy had more money than the King of France did during a lot of time, even a bigger army as well, which is always very interesting. And then as we go through the process in about the mid to probably like the 1950s, 1960s, the tagline, il n 'yol qui mai, qui mai, came out, which is, for lack of a better term and very, very loosely translated.

19:49I'm sure I'm going to get flack for this, but it basically means my mustard is my mustard. Il n 'yol qui mai, qui mai. And once that kind of took off, it's very similar to some of the other mustards that we have here that had a very famous tagline. And it kind of really started taking off from there. And then the quality has always been recognized culinarily. And it just kind of has slowly built this sort of mass following of every time you crack open a jar of my, you're going to get the best quality mustard, the best quality seeds. And it's going to be super consistent. It's not going to let you down.

20:24and it's going to make everybody happy. And it looks cool. Like it just looks good. It really does look cool. I'm glad you bring that up because aesthetic is so important. Yeah. You know, I asked Jeremy this question. I want to ask you like point blank. What does Dijon mustard taste like? What's the flavor? So mostly you're going to get some horseradish notes, right? Because the same glucosinolates that give you the kind of heat are the same that you get in horseradish and the same that you get in Brussels sprouts and cabbage, right? You get a nice hint of vinegar and you get this beautiful kind of salty, smooth creaminess on the palate.

20:57I think one of the really cool things about Dijon in general, and especially Maya, is the way that we process the seeds is it doesn't come up through your olfactory senses and it doesn't make you cry and sweat like some of the Coleman's or even some Tewksbury and those types of mustard. Oh, you're coming for them. You're coming for them. Which are delicious mustards, don't get me wrong. You don't have to say that. I am a mustard sommelier for all, not just Noah, but I do prefer my over everybody else. You'll put Dijon on a hot dog, for example. 100%. Good. Yeah, I'll put Dijon on anything. And it's super chill, right?

21:35A lot of people kind of think Dijon is this super spicy mustard. But with my, it's not. And it's the way that we process. It's the way that we make the mustard itself. Yeah, like back when this style of mustard was being created and evangelized, what was the mustard landscape like? Because we hear about these other brands and we use the term yellow mustard. Like what was Dijon facing when they were trying to enter the American market? Basically, whenever Dijon was created, right? It was created in the late 1800s. They were utilizing the verjure before it became the wine or before it became wine.

22:15uh mustard seeds it was verjus it was salt it was water um and that was basically it and it was there to add flavor to to meat right especially during that that point in time like culinarily we were just kind of getting started right um and a lot of times it was there to kind of cover up some rotten notes maybe to some extent mustard is antibacterial and it's antimicrobial right so it It can really kind of help store and cure things and kind of keep them a little bit safer. And the reason why it was kind of designed was for that exact reason. It was used as a seasoning, not so much as a condiment or a way to kind of make foods more edible.

22:58And then whenever it started coming over into the States, right, it kind of came over in that same sort of vein where it was like, okay, we have yellow mustard and yellow mustard, you know, French's being the big one. Right. They started off as creamy yellow salad dressing or something to that extent. And it was just kind of the not the antithesis to what French's was, but it was just a different mustard. Right. It added a different flavor profile. It wasn't nearly as turmeric laden. It wasn't nearly as acidic either. I mean, it just added a different dynamic. I think that both mustards play extremely well in a lot of different things like where I'm going to use my Dijon in a potato salad.

23:37it. I may not use French's, but I'll put them both on a hot dog. I'll put them both on a burger. That's just kind of the yellow mustard sort of world to me is the same sort of mentality. But whenever it comes to Dijon itself, it came over as sort of that like foreign thing. There was probably like a level of exoticism there. Like it was clearly French. It had a name that we knew was French. Fancy. You know, I'm cooking with Dijon tonight. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly it. And it was and people were coming over, right, and bringing the mustard with them from their homelands. And it was just in the same way that Tewkesbury, in the same way that Coleman's got over here and things along that line.

24:16It's just migration really kind of influences a lot of what we eat. Well, let's talk about how to cook with Dijon because I think we will be tasting a number of styles of Dijon because there is no monolith here. Many different styles of Dijon. We're going to go over it. But in general, let's talk about the classic, the original Dijon. I want to hear from you. like some cool ways that we can cook with it. We know about lemon Dijon chicken. Yeah. We know that. But what else are we doing here? So one of the really cool things, and everybody kind of loses their mind whenever I say this, but Dijon reacts with chocolate the same way that espresso does.

24:53Right? So a lot of times whenever you're making like double chocolate brownies or chocolate cake, it calls for like that powdered espresso. If you don't have powdered espresso, because I don't keep powdered espresso in my house, you can kind of do a one-for-one with Dijon. And it is going to react the exact same way. The vinegar, the salt, and the mustard seed itself will actually help to enhance the flavor of that chocolate. And it's not going to taste like you're eating a mustard brownie. The old style I like to really put, or a stone ground, I like to put on top of, like, really high-fat vanilla ice cream.

25:24Yeah. It adds that, like, bitter, spicy crunch, similar to whenever, like, we put olive oil on it, right? Same sort of idea. And it's really, really good in breads. It's great just kind of as like that underlying flavor. And to me, the way that I view mustard in general and especially Dijon is it's a seasoning, right? I think it's we've gotten we put it into this condiment category because that's what we've always known it as. But it works so well in enhancing the flavors of everything else. It plays so nicely in the sandbox with everything. Oh, yeah, because it has an iconic bite and it has an iconic acidity.

26:01Exactly. And you're going to get a little bit of that iconic flavor and it's going to be transported into other things. What's the vanilla ice cream brand? Let me ask you. Van Leeuwen is the one that I usually use. Like super high fat. I also, even something like a Breyers too, like works extremely well in that as well because it has that like nice pure vanilla flavor. Absolutely amazing. I love it. What about honey mustard? What about honey? How do you cook with honey mustard? because I think some listeners might think that's a dated flavor. That's like the 90s. But no. Yeah. And I think there are a couple of different things, right?