Horseradish Dill Sauce

Sour cream–it’s the perfect dip starter: a bit tart, a bit creamy, and it ‘plays well with others‘, merging and melding with most herbs or flavors.  Lightly fermented dairy similar to crème fraîche but is more tangy and often made with less fat…I say yes.  If you’re feeling the need for more scrumptious fats in your cream, try this little method of a non-cultured sour cream:

Quick Sour Cream:  pour 1 cup heavy whipping cream into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon (or a little more) fresh lemon juice.  Whisk until thick.  Add a dash of salt and voilà, a creamy tangy mixture waiting for instructions. 

Anethum graveolens

Dill Dill Dill.  I love dill.  

It also ‘plays well’ with many, especially: fish, eggs, chicken, lamb, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, cauliflower, carrots, onions, potatoes, beets, mushrooms, cilantro, mint, paprika, vinaigrettes, pickles, capers, breads, butter, cheese and all things cream or yogurt.  Although used worldwide dill is most famously known as a favorite ingredient of Eastern European (borsht; potatoes; cottage cheese; pickles) Scandinavian (gravlax; aquavit; cucumbers), and Mediterranean (rice; fattoush; salads; cabbage; fish) cooking.

Always use the dill fronds fresh, they lose their flavor if heated.  The seeds, however, are great in cooked dishes—one of my favorite potato soups has yogurt and dill seed.  Just thinking of it makes me salivate, it may have to be a post in the very near future.

This is yet another recipe from the the 1997 Joy of Cooking with a few tweaks.  Promise me you will try it with the Smoked Salmon Cakes.  

Looking for a graduation present?  Wild guess…the 1997 Joy of Cooking.  Not as exciting as an iPhone but waaaay better than towels.  And nobody wears watches anymore.  It houses copious amounts of information in the ‘About’ sections, and everything from basics like cooking a roast and making pie crust to dabbling in the exotic flavors like chermoula and spicy peanut sauce.  Even if it just sits in a box for a few years…they will eventually unpack it, experience amazement that they own an actual physical book, and then use it until the pages are dogged and stained.  That’s true love.

Congratulations to all of you Graduates!!  

Horseradish Dill Sauce

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Whisk together:

1 1/2 cups Sour Cream

2 Tablespoon Horseradish, prepared and drained or freshly grated

2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice, fresh

1 teaspoon Red Pepper Sauce (like Lousiana Hot Sauce, Franks Red Hot, or Crystal)

2 Tablespoon Capers, chopped

2 Tablespoon Fresh Dill, chopped (or 1 1/2 T. dried dill weed if you cannot get fresh)

Salt to taste

Serve as a dip with vegetables, chips, fish or fish cakes. 

I am lucky to be the recipient of beautiful scarves…and of pottery by Warren Mackenzie.