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Salad

Cream Sauce for Salads

A creamy dressing made with sour cream, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cream Sauce for Salads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the thick sour cream until smooth.

  2. Add the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the finely chopped onion to taste.

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. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + olivetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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
Forms the creamy base and provides the dressing's body and tangy flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the cream.
Olive oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Onion
Contributes a sharp aroma and bite in small amounts.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice and oil. Acid and oil added to sour cream can thin or split it if poured in too fast. Adding them gradually while mixing well keeps the dressing smooth and evenly combined.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, olive, onion. 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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