Home › Salads › Cream Dressing
Cream Dressing
1 cup cream 1 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon vinegar 1/4 teaspoon salt Dash of red pepper Mix the sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper thoroughly together; then add the cream gradually.
A four-ingredient uncooked salad dressing of the sort that predates bottled mayonnaise in most American homes. The whole technique is in the last three words.
- Add the cream graduallyThis is the hinge. Acid poured onto cream will curdle it into visible flecks; cream trickled into the acid mixture while stirring stays smooth. Go slowly for the first quarter cup, then faster.
- Which creamUse heavy cream (36% fat) or whipping cream. Half-and-half or light cream is thinner and breaks more readily against the vinegar.
- Red pepperIn American cookbooks of this era "red pepper" usually means cayenne rather than paprika or crushed chile flakes. A dash is commonly reckoned at about 1/16 teaspoon; it should register as warmth, not heat.
- VinegarPlain cider or white wine vinegar suits it. Most modern table vinegars run about 5% acidity, which may be stronger than some household vinegars of the era, so taste before adding more.
- ThickeningLeft to stand a little while, the acid may thicken the cream noticeably. If you want it thicker still, whip the cream to soft peaks first and fold the seasoned vinegar in a spoonful at a time.
- Yield and useAbout one cup, enough to dress salad for six. It is built for mild leaf lettuce, sliced cucumber, cabbage slaw, or fruit salad rather than sturdy bitter greens.
- KeepingBest made the day you serve it; acidified cream can separate on standing in the refrigerator.
Sweetened cream-and-vinegar dressings were a common American salad sauce in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, appearing in community and instructional cookbooks under names like cream dressing, boiled dressing (when eggs and heat were involved) and sour cream dressing. They suited households that had cream on hand daily; sugar and vinegar in the same spoonful is a habit often associated with the sweet-sour cooking of Pennsylvania German and Midwestern farm kitchens, where the same balance dresses hot slaw and wilted lettuce.