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Sour Cream Dressing

A chilled sour cream dressing flavored with vinegar, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,334 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Sour Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the sour cream in the refrigerator for several hours.

Make the dressing

  1. Using an electric mixer, beat the chilled cream until it forms stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add the vinegar, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice, mixing for an additional 2 minutes.

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 + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

Thick sour cream
Provides fat and body, and thickens into stiff peaks when chilled and beaten.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the cream.
Lemon juice
Adds fresh acidity and aroma that sharpens the flavour of the dressing.

The step that matters

Beating the chilled cream to stiff peaks. Chilling firms the cream's fat so it can hold air and peaks. Beating too long can make the fat clump and turn grainy or buttery, so stop once stiff peaks form.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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