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Salad

German Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with sour cream, sugar, pepper, salt, mustard, bacon fat, onion, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

German Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour cream, sugar, pepper, salt, and mustard.

  2. In a small pan, heat the bacon fat and cook the chopped onion until soft.

  3. Add the cooked onion and bacon fat to the sour cream mixture.

  4. Stir in the boiling vinegar until well combined.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Provides a creamy base and tangy richness that carries the dressing.
Bacon fat
Adds savory flavor and fat that coats the other ingredients.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness when softened in the bacon fat.

The step that matters

Stir in the boiling vinegar. Adding boiling vinegar to cold sour cream can cause it to thin or curdle. Stirring steadily and adding the vinegar gradually helps the dressing stay smooth and combined.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, pepper, mustard, 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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