White mustard seeds have a mild taste and are used in pickling and to make American yellow mustard. Brown mustard seeds are much hotter, often featuring in Indian cuisine. Black seeds have a fine aroma but are less common. Dam
Mustard’s heat is produced by sulphur-containing isothiocyanates, which, unlike other pungent compounds, vaporize at body temperature to have a nose-filling pungency. The complex flavour profile also includes pine-like pinene, ground-coffee-like furanmethanethiol, malty, peachy 3-methylbutanal, and popcorn-like 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline. Nutty, roasted pyrazine flavours are produced by toasting the seeds.
