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Sour Cream Dressing

A thickened dressing made with sour cream, sugar, salt, mustard, red pepper, vinegar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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. Combine sugar, salt, mustard, and red pepper in a saucepan.

  2. Rub together until lumps are removed.

  3. Add enough sour cream to make a smooth paste.

  4. Mix in the remaining sour cream and vinegar.

  5. Beat in the eggs until thoroughly mixed.

  6. Stir over moderate heat until the mixture thickens and the spoon leaves a track.

  7. Let cool and store in a tight jar in a cool place.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Sour cream
Provides the creamy base and tang that makes up most of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that complements the tang of the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir over moderate heat until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set gradually as they heat, thickening the dressing. Too much heat can curdle the eggs, so stir constantly and watch for the spoon-coating texture to stop cooking as soon as it thickens.

Swap the mustard

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