Name: Cream Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 1 cup sour cream; 2 tablespoons vinegar; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons vinegar
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Directions

In a bowl, mix the sour cream with the vinegar.
Add the pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.
Stir until well combined and serve over your favorite salad.

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.

Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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

Sour cream: Forms the creamy base, giving body and a mild tang to the dressing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity, bringing sharpness that balances the richness of the sour cream.

“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.