Homemade Russian Dressing

This dressing is an American invention from over a hundred years ago, although whether it was based upon some Russian recipe originally, I do not know. In those times, however, many immigrants came to the United States from the old Russian Empire. It is similar to Thousand Island dressing, but the chili sauce and horseradish give this dressing some kick. Like other dressings, it can be used on sandwiches too, and it is commonly used on Reubens. Like many dressings, there are variations in recipes for Russian dressing, but the "very red" bottled version "seems" to be more of a commercial style, and it is far sweeter in taste than most Russian dressing recipes. 

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup tomato-based chili sauce (I use Heinz, just to give you an example)
2 tablespoons onion, very finely minced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 to 3 tablespoons white horseradish; that is, not mixed with beets *
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix well. Chill before serving.

* If you tend to have horseradish on hand in your refrigerator, you might want to take a small taste before using it in the dressing, as horseradish often loses some of its "zip," once it has been opened and allowed to sit in the refrigerator for awhile. When I first bought the jar I used, it was one of the hottest jar's of horseradish I had ever tasted, and that takes some doing, because when I was growing up, horseradish was something we always had at home, and also at my maternal grandparents' house, where my grandfather and grandmother would render a verdict on each new jar of horseradish they bought. If it didn't make your eyes water and your nose run, they would say, "Not a good batch."  

WORD HISTORY:
Condiment-This compound, meaning, "sauce or seasoning added to dish," goes back to Indo European "doeh," which meant "to give." This gave its Italic offspring, and the derived Latin, "do," with the same basic meaning. This then gave Latin "dare," a verb meaning "to give." This then became the basis for the Latin verb "condere," which meant "to put ("give up") into storage," and then the altered form "condire," meaning "to preserve food with seasonings (salt and spices)." This then gave Latin "condimentum," with the meaning, "seasoning, sauce, seasoning sauce." Old French, a Latin-based language, had its form of the word as "condiment," and English then borrowed the word from French in the early part of the 1400s. The "con" part of the word goes back to Indo European "kom/ghem," which had the idea of "beside, near, together." This gave Latin "com," which also had the variant form "con;" thus, "condiment" is really pretty much literally, "seasoning sauce that goes together with something."