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Salad

Sour Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with sour cream, flour, and seasonings, cooked in a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. Blend flour, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper together.

  2. Mix the dry ingredients with the sour cream.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the well-beaten egg and vinegar.

  2. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Once cooked and cooled, add oil for a richer dressing or more vinegar or milk to thin it.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 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. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it body.
Egg
Sets with gentle heat, adding richness and thickening the dressing.
Sour cream
Provides the creamy base and a tangy flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture in a double boiler until thick. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, and flour starch thickens as it heats. Stirring constantly and using indirect heat in a double boiler prevents the egg from scrambling or the base from scorching.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, sugar, cream, egg, vinegar, milk. 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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