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Sour Cream Dressing

A dressing made from sour cream, pepper, salt, vinegar, and chopped cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sour Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, season the sour cream with pepper and salt.

  2. Whip the sour cream until smooth.

  3. Add vinegar to taste.

Dress the cabbage

  1. Pour the dressing over the chopped cabbage and mix thoroughly.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rich sour cream
Provides the creamy base, richness, and tangy flavor of the dressing.
Chopped cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives a crisp texture that holds up to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the sour cream.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar to taste. Acid sharpens flavor quickly and can overpower the cream, so add the vinegar a little at a time and taste as you go.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, vinegar. 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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