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Salad

Sour Cream Dressing

A dressing made with vinegar, salad oil, pepper, mustard, salt, sugar, sour cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sour Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat vinegar to boiling point.

  2. Gradually pour hot vinegar into beaten egg yolks, stirring until thick.

  3. Slowly add salad oil until fully melted.

  4. Mix in the remaining ingredients.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently in the hot vinegar, giving body and structure.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks, oil and sour cream.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the dressing a rich, silky mouthfeel.
Sour cream
Adds creaminess, moisture and a mild tang to the finished dressing.
Prepared mustard
Helps hold the oil and liquids together in a smooth, stable emulsion.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring hot vinegar into the egg yolks. Adding hot vinegar too quickly can scramble the egg yolks into lumps. Pouring slowly while stirring warms the yolks gradually, so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, sugar, cream, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, sugar, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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