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Sour Cream Dressing

A creamy dressing made with sour cream, vinegar, sugar, mustard, butter, salt, pepper, and egg.

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

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix together sour cream, vinegar, sugar, dry mustard, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg and stir to combine.

Cook and thicken

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it thickens.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Provides the thick base, tangy flavor, and creamy richness of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the sour cream.
Egg
Its proteins set when heated, helping thicken the dressing and bind it together.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that complements the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook gently in the double boiler. Egg proteins thicken the dressing as they warm, but high heat makes them curdle and scramble, leaving a grainy texture. Gentle, even heat and steady stirring keep the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vinegar, sugar, butter, pepper, 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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