The One Ingredient to Rule them All! Also Known As Sour Cream...

She had her trolley parked in front of the sour cream as she procrastinated over which unimportant product she wanted to purchase! I squeezed around the front to reach around the edge of the fridge and rescue two pots...maybe a third, as I tried to recall how much we had left at home. She didn't even seem to notice and continued her obstruction of this important ingredient.

I'm not sure exactly when sour cream became such a staple in our house, but I only recently realised just how much I now use it in our meals. I first started using it as a replacement for mayonnaise, when we moved to Australia. It's hard to imagine now, but back in England I used to like mayonnaise. A couple of tastes of some sugary Australian ones and I've never touched it since. I did consider trying to make my own, but it needs a flavourless oil and that's generally the hydrogenated ones, which I try to avoid, because they are trans-fats. Anyway, replacing it with fresh sour cream was much less time consuming with much simpler ingredients. It's been even better since I found a brand that doesn't add thickener and as long as it's kept chilled it has a good shelf life, meaning I can stock up with as few trips to the shop as possible (I hate going shopping after all).

We use it with burgers, on wraps and with nachos and tacos. But in more recent years I've also been using it as a base for some sauces, substituting it for ingredients I don't usually keep in the house.

Garlic Sauce

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As I said the other day to our visitor who told me his mum, a chef, adds cucumber to this type of sauce too, I'm definitely no chef! I like to keep things simple and I can't be bothered with measuring things out if I don't have to, so I'm afraid I don't have an ingredients list with exact measurements. However, I'll let you know how I make mine and you can improve on it from there if you wish. The original recipe I evolved it from was for a Mediterranean meatball recipe, which called for a yoghurt base and didn't contain garlic or cucumber. I rarely had unsweetened yoghurt in the house at the time, so it got replaced with sour cream. I've developed it into this garlic sauce, similar to what Yiros places use, but more refreshing with the cucumber. I don't always have cucumber available, though. Take out the garlic and it's suited to a Mediterranean dish again.

Ingredients

Sour cream
Lemon juice
1 clove garlic
1 small cucumber or 1/3 of a large
Salt and pepper to taste

I use the juice of half a lemon to the volume of sour cream as you see it in the photo above. Now normally I go liberal with garlic, but as this is fresh and uncooked it tends to be more potent, so I actually only use a small clove.

Then I'll just mix all the ingredients together and add a bit of filtered water to give it a more sauce like consistency. Not all sour cream needs this, but as you can probably tell my preferred brand is quite thick and certainly not runny.

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Our version of an Adelaide dish known as AB; frequently requested by my youngest daughter.

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Creamy Cheese Sauce

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For a long time the only cheese sauce I knew how to make was a béchamel sauce. This is actually a rather heavy sauce and needs continual attention during the cooking process. I'd looked at trying to find lighter sauces before, something more similar to the Italian pasta ones, but hadn't really found one. Then when my daughter asked if we couldn't have a lighter sauce like those, I looked a bit harder. There was no way I was feeling patient enough to do a carbonara sauce, which is what recipes mainly come up when you search for these types of sauces. So I was ecstatic to come across a really easy cream based sauce. I wasn't sure if it would be what we were hoping for, especially as I was replacing the cream with sour cream (I rarely use cream and it doesn't keep for long, so it mostly sits in our fridge and goes bad). It turned out perfect and is so simple to make!

Ingredients

Sour cream
Grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Sweet basil or other herb (optional)

Add all the ingredients to a saucepan, except for the herbs (the originating recipe said salt is a must, but I don't add much and I think that the sour cream helps out with the flavour whereas standard cream might need more adding). Mix them together well before putting the pan on a gentle heat until it's melted and combined fully. I mix before heating, as well as during, because if I get sidetracked then any cheese touching the pan directly will just melt into a clump and won't dissolve into the sauce properly. Add the chopped herbs at the end, just before serving, if you like them fresh.

I try to avoid the sauce getting so hot that it boils, but it occasionally happens when I'm trying to do too much at once and doesn't detract from the sauce when it does. It just may not be as smooth. Béchamel sauce wouldn't turn out right with such low level of attention, so I love how much quicker simpler this is. Plus it's so flavoursome!

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Creamy cheese sauce with pasta.

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I usually do this dish with chicken breast, but didn't have enough this day, so used our home grown quail breasts. This is a family favourite; creamy chicken quail, with garlic and Rosemary potatoes.

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Divider courtesy of @kaliphae



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42 comments
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You and I both! I normally keep sour cream in our refrigerator because I use it quite often for recipes. I also try to keep cream cheese on hand as well.

These recipes look so amazing. I’ll have to give that garlic sauce a try! Thanks for sharing ~

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You'll have to share some of your cream cheese recipes with us. 😁

I made a couple of Japanese cotton cheesecakes a while back and had planned to make more, but it's just so time consuming I didn't and the cream cheese is out of date now. Currently trying to compost it...

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CHEESECAKE!! 😋😮

That’s one of my favorite desserts!

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Mine too! The cotton cheesecake is a bit different to our traditional ones, though. Have you tried it before? I never had until recently, but recommended it for using up lots of eggs.

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No, I’ve never had it but am very curious now.

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Hi @minismallholding

You know when I first looked at the photo I was trying to work out why are you putting cucumber and pepper on ice cream 🤣 then I read the title and felt like a moron.

I love sour cream but it is ridonculously expensive here. I would love to be able to use it on everything but alas. That fave dish of your daughter looks scrumptious! Now I'm off to raid the fridge.

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Lol! The latest gourmet flavours! Sounds like any meal with sour cream would be gourmet where you are though. Is it just not a popular food, so not produced in large quantities?

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It is available and I'm sure some people use it a lot more than I do, but I'm pretty frugal so I won't pay the equivalent of $3 USD for 200ml at the supermarket. I love it on enchiladas, so so good with avo on top.

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$3 USD! That's probably nearly double what we pay here. Admittedly, food prices are going up faster than I'd like and the price is dependant on the brand. My favourite is the Aldi one, which ironically is the best quality in my opinion (additive free) despite it being the 'cheap' supermarket.

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You and Amanda are definitely on the same page with the sour cream and the garlic.
Chopping a cucumber in there is new. I'll pass it along :)

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It's just so good! The cucumber was actually a way to sneak more into our diet, but it makes it quite refreshing.

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Love your Foodie post!

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Hi @minimallholding! I really like this post, because you give several options to create great sauces, which will certainly enrich the menu of many readers; creativity is always important in the kitchen and you demonstrate it here. Undoubtedly a great ingredient is sour cream. Greetings.

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Thank you for saying so. I like simple things to make in the kitchen, but we also like flavour, so these have been a nice addition without the mountains of unknown ingredients you get in shop bought sauces. One child and one hot, too. 🙂

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Oooo I think I will try the cheese sauce one. I am allergic to most of the pre-made varieties, but I use sour cream and parmesan by themselves just fine. Thanks for this!

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Just soo much crap in the pre-made ones and it's unnecessary. It's actually surprising how much taste you can get from just a few simple ingredients.

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These were SOOOOO GOOD!!! Thanks for sharing and inspiring us. 😀

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I'm very interested in seeing how it's made, it looks like you think it's a shame it's really good to try

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Hi, your recipes look very delicious and very easy too. And I like your system no measurement it fit for me. I don't measure ingredients unless posting in the hive world. Nice to know somebody does it. Thank you for sharing and giving us inspiration. greetings! have a nice weekend 😊

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(Edited)

You're so good figuring out the measurements for Hive! Now I feel ultra lazy...

If it needs measurements to be made, then it's not going to be made very often here. 😆

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Coool ! Had not really explored sour cream as I was more vegan a couple of years ago, but starting to turn toward 'traditional food making" like fermentations, kefir etc I may try to experiment with this then, since I love sauces and currys, until now my favorite is coconut milk but it's not always available hhh

Isn't sourcream from a fermentation process? Would be awesome to try to make it at home in that case 😍

Much Love and thanks for your generous feature 🙏

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Isn't sourcream from a fermentation process?

Pretty much. Rather like yoghurt, I believe.

Thank you for the gorgeous dividers. I don't often come across many that I like.

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I can understand your affection for sour cream. It really adds a lot to many kinds of dishes. I can't imagine giving up my mayo though. The brand I've always used here in the US does not have sugar in it.

I do like how you have adapted it to fit your needs and am glad it turns out to delight your tastes as well.

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I don't think I could have imagined giving up mayonnaise. A lot of foods are a bit different to what we were used to in England, so we've changed quite a bit in what we eat now.

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That pasta looks sooo goood! When I do shrimp pasta I use exactly what you used in your sauce recipe: sour cream, parmezan cheese, salt and pepper (pink pepper it's a must for me) and sometimes I'll add some gorgonzola as well if I have it on hand. I think this sauce you shared it's a classic one, you can't fail with it right?

And the cucumber sauce takes my thoughts to tzatziki sauce. It's kind of similar but you replace the sour cream with yoghurt..

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I also use the pink Himalayan salt! I got a big bag of it, as the was the best price per weight and it's still going. Sometimes I forget I've put the salt in a dish, then come back to it to mix it and wonder what the pink stuff is. 😆

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I see. But I think you got it wront. I meant pink peppercorns. I use it in mostly of my foods, especially for pasta and meat.

But still, just to let you know I also bought a BIG bag of pink Himalayan salt just the other day because I didnt find it in small bag haha.
My mom says Pink Himalayan salat is not salty LOL. Did you hear this before? Every time I hear her, I laugh hard. 🤣 (she's used with the regular white salt).

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Pink peppercorns exist!? I've never heard of them before. 😯

I've never heard that said before of pink salt. 😆

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(Edited)

Well, thats a first time for every thing hahaha :)))) she's always so funny saying that.

Anywaysm YES, pink peppercorn exists and IT IS AWESOME! the taste it's heavenly. I have a BIG jar in the kitchen. Google it and if you have the chance someday, buy it. It's a good condiment. I LOVE IT!

This is a peace of meat I cooked, see? Pink pepper on top and that is the Jar I mentioned above. 😁

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Oh wow, even your food is colourful as well as your learning activities! 😁

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