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Sour-Cream Salad Dressing
1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1/8 teaspoon cayenne 1 tablespoon lemon-juice 2 tablespoons vinegar 1 cup sour cream This makes an excellent dressing for vegetable salads. Place the salt, sugar, and pepper together in a bowl, mix well and add the lemon-juice, then the vinegar. When the mixture is perfectly smooth, put in the cream, stir well and set on the ice until needed.
A quick uncooked dressing that depends entirely on the order of mixing: dry seasonings first, then acid, then cream. Reversing that leaves grains of undissolved salt and a streaky dressing.
- "Pepper" in the methodThe instructions call for salt, sugar, and pepper, but the ingredient list specifies cayenne. Use the 1/8 teaspoon cayenne; there is no black pepper in the recipe.
- What sour cream meantIn this period sour cream often meant sweet cream left to sour naturally, which could be thinner and sharper than today's product. Modern cultured sour cream is thicker and milder, so the 2 tablespoons vinegar plus lemon juice may taste assertive; start with half the vinegar and add the rest to taste. Full-fat sour cream holds together better than light or fat-free, which can weep when acid is added.
- Dissolve before you add creamSalt and sugar go into the lemon juice and vinegar more readily than into the cream, which is why the recipe seasons the acid first.
- Add the acid to the cream, not the reverseOrder of mixing -- The recipe adds the cream to the seasoned acid. If you prefer, stir the seasoned acid gradually into the cream instead; adding cream to acid all at once can look grainy, though the flavour is unharmed.
- "Set on the ice"An icebox instruction: refrigerate. A short chill lets the salt and sugar round out; use it within a few days, covered.
- Yield and useMakes about 1 1/4 cups, enough for 6 to 8 servings. It is thick enough to coat shredded cabbage, cucumbers, beets, or boiled potatoes rather than to pour over leaves.