I haven’t found myself digging most of the flavored mustards- though haven’t tried the chablis/truffle one mentioned. Have had a bunch of different herb, garlic, tarragon, etc, mustards and most don’t do much for me.
I use grey poupon for cooking a lot.
For fancy mustards I use Maille- the self imported dijon and the locally purchased whole grain country.
I use Beaver Sweet/Hot for a few specific things- i.e. prosciutto and parmesan puff pastry appetizers.
For most picnic type situations I tend toward Gulden’s spicy brown.
I agree 100% that the Maille product purchased in France highly outperform their domestic counterparts, big fan of the Chablis and Truffle as others have noted. For all of the Maille fans out there, if you haven’t tried Amora (regular, not extra forte) give it a spin. I find it has a similar level of intensity to French purchased Maille and it can be bought on Amazon
Agree. Amora Moutarde de Dijon is our go to basic Dijon-style mustard. In my opinion, it is way better than other Dijon mustards available in the US. Beyond that, at any given time, we have 10+ flavored mustards that I believe is more about your preferred flavor. The Maille black and white truffle mustards are fantastic, although expensive.
Apparently I’m slumming it with the US purchased Maille, but I still think it’s pretty darned good. I’ll have to try Amora. I tried to find the French version of Maille available for shipping to the US and either failed or gave up because of cost, I forget which.
Those Fallot mustards are great, although the tarragon flavor is so strong in that one that I need to mix it with another mustard if using a significant amount.
Trader Joe’s has a horseradish mustard in a clay jar that’s really flavorful and really spicy. I can’t keep my hands off it when we have some. I think it’s their own brand. I absolutely love it on crackers with a good cheddar. Then I end up just putting the mustard on the crackers and eating way too much.
I used to like the Sir Kensington, but now I notice the sweetness way too much, thus these other choices.
“Those Fallot mustards are great, although the tarragon flavor is so strong in that one that I need to mix it with another mustard if using a significant amount.”
Doug, my favorite use for this mustard is in a tarragon cream sauce for roast chicken. I deglaze my roasting pan with white wine and blend this mustard in as I build the sauce. Even the kids drag their fingers through the sauce during dinner.
I tried the Fallot Bourgogne (which I noted has different price and ingredients to the Dijon). Quite nice. Has a bit of a deep horse radish like burn on the end… not sure how I feel about it because if I use a lot then I get a lot of burn, but if I use a little then I don’t get enough mustard flavor. Clearly a great mustard and I will enjoy researching the rest of the jar (looks like a stone or ceramic jar).
They intentionally cut the American product to make it “creamier” (less hot). I’m on the fence, as I enjoy both; just depends on how I’m using it. You can also get on tap in London, but I don’t recall if that is full strength or not. My favorite is probably the d’Esplette, which I can eat on sandwiches until I’m red in the face.
What Mark said. We buy 12 crocks at a time and bring them home in a wine shipper. When we run out of mustard, we go back to Paris.
Once we got stopped at customs coming back into JFK and when they asked us what was in the box, we said “Mustard!” The guy gave us a very skeptical look and proceeded to open our box. He took one sniff and said “yep, mustard. Carry on.”
We keep it in the fridge and have never had an issue. We go through a crock every 2 or 3 months, so the last of our 12 pack stock are in there for a while.