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What is ranch? I'm English and I don't have a valid frame of reference for the concept of ranch other than large cattle farm.
A milk/cream based dressing with onion, garlic and dill as the main seasonings, with 4-5 others sprinkled in.
It's basically the American version of salad cream.
That's an unfair comparison.
For grandparent:
Ranch is mayonnaise-based, but is savory, with seasonings and plenty of umami. There's a lot of variation, and IMO the best version is Uncle Dan's (Amazon).
It's a cream dressing, so plenty heavy. Often used for dipping stuff. With Uncle Dan's (which comes as a powder), you mix it with buttermilk and mayo for a dressing; or you mix it with Greek yoghurt (or sour cream) and mayo for a dip.
I disagree that's it's an "unfair comparison." It's certainly not a 1:1, but to help someone with absolutely no bearing on what ranch dressing is understand, I think it's a decent shorthand.
It's like if someone from Mexico asked what sriracha is and I replied, "it's like the Thai version of Tapatío." Is it perfect? No, there's way more nuance, but it gets them most of the way toward understanding.
Fair enough. I'm leery of easy comparisons, because in my mind, they're such radically different things. It's like saying a Wiener Schnitzel is basically like American fried chicken. I mean, I guess? They're both meat, they're both battered and fried. But they're drastically different foods.
Shit, I'll go further: my pet peeve is crème brûlée. It's egg yolk, heavy cream, sugar and vanilla. That's it. But every chef at every restaurant has this compulsion to fuck with the recipe; their crème brûlée has lemon, or strawberry, or sage or cayenne or some shit... just leave the fucking recipe alone! Stop trying to be edgy or special! They always have to fuck with the recipe, and it drives me nuts, because it invariably ruins an already perfect recipe. You add shit to a perfect recipe and it can only get less perfect. So, IMO, my crème brûlée, is not like the crème brûlée at that restaurant: not because I'm some awesome chef, but because crème brûlée is a stupid easy recipe that's almost impossible to screw up... unless you add fucking jalepeño or some such crap.
Ranch contains no mayonnaise. It's base is buttermilk
Ingredients 1 packet Original Southern Ranch Dressing 2 cups sour cream 2 cups mayonnaise
Uncle Dan's Classic Ranch Dressing
Ingredients 1 packet of Uncle Dan's Classic Ranch 2 Cups Buttermilk 2 Cups Mayonnaise
And if you don't agree that Uncle Dan's is the pinnacle of ranch dressing, here's the first search result recipe for homemade ranch dressing; there are 11 ingredients, but the first three are:
Ingredients ▢ 1/2 cup mayonnaise ▢ 1/2 cup sour cream ▢ 1/2 cup buttermilk or regular milk
It's congealed leprechaun jizz.
Vile.
The description in the image sounds pretty tasty. Although I have no idea what buttermilk is