Salvadoran Crema

[Demetrius]

My wife and I are hosting Easter Dinner at our house this year, and have decided to forgo the typical ham or lamb and instead cook one of Bob Kinkead's signature dishes - Pepita Crusted Salmon.

The recipe calls for salvadoran crema but states that sour cream can be used instead. I know where to find the ingredient, however, unsure as to whether the two are that different in flavor profiles?

The crema sold is a large batch. Can anyone offer any suggestions on what the left over ingredient could be applied towards?

Thank you.

[Mrs. B]

Crema has an almost (but not quite) cheesey overtone on my palate. I use it in black bean or squash soup, pour a bit into a halved avocado with a splash of hot sauce, put it on fried plantains and also happily eat it off a spoon as a guilty pleasure. I wouldn't use it in place of sour cream on a potato or in a dip.

How large of a batch are you buying? In my neck of the woods (Mt Pleasant) 15oz is pretty much standard.

If you don't care for it, send it over here yum yum.

[cjsadler]

My wife and I are hosting Easter Dinner at our house this year, and have decided to forgo the typical ham or lamb and instead cook one of Bob Kinkead's signature dishes - Pepita Crusted Salmon.

The recipe calls for salvadoran crema but states that sour cream can be used instead. I know where to find the ingredient, however, unsure as to whether the two are that different in flavor profiles?

The crema sold is a large batch. Can anyone offer any suggestions on what the left over ingredient could be applied towards?

Thank you.

Sour cream worked just fine in that recipe. A lot of components to that dish, but it's really great.

[zoramargolis]

Add a little extra salt. To me that is the primary difference between crema and sour cream.

[The Hersch]

Why is it that a packaged food product offered for sale in stores must bear a label that lists its ingredients (in descending order of preponderance), but a website offering a food product for sale apparently need not provide that information? That by way of preface to my observation that the few times I have looked at a container of crema in a store, the ingredient list was such that I had no desire to buy it. Unfortunately, I can't remember what the offensive ingredients were, and was trying to find something on the web, which I failed to do. There are, of course, offensive (to me, anyway) ingredients in many brands of sour cream, such as modified food starch, guar gum, xanthan gum, carrageenan, sodium benzoate, and other appealing substances. Then there are the good brands of sour cream, which contain cream (plus milk in some cases) and enzymes. I think the offensive ingredients in the crema packages I've looked at were probably along the lines of the offensive ingredients in some sour cream. (Among the good brands: Daisy, Friendship, Breakstone. Among the offensive: Cabot.)

[TheMatt]

If you were in Alexandria/Annandale, I could tell you exactly where to go, the Shoppers at Little River Turnpike and Beauregard. They have cremas that represent all of Central America. Same for cheeses.