Ranch dressing improves everything. So I tried to improve ranch dressing

This Is Us, on Amazon Prime Video, has been a quiet joy during lockdown. It is one of those television series where it starts to feel as if you might actually be in it, rather than merely watching. The other night, while many of the characters were going through a stressful time gathered in a hospital waiting room, one of their number tried – unsuccessfully – to lighten things up with a question: what food is improved by neither ranch dressing nor chocolate? I can’t say I engaged with this, but it did lead me to meander off into some half-hearted research on ranch dressing. Do we have it here? Or is it just an American thing? What’s in it? The recipe I found called for mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon, onion and garlic powder as well as dried parsley, dill and chives. I made it and it was great, if not the healthiest.

Having enjoyed some success sharing my inauthentic Irish soda bread recipe during lockdown 1.0, I couldn’t resist applying myself to the creation of an inauthentic, less unhealthy, vegan version in lockdown 2.0. So, with apologies to Steve Henson, the plumber who apparently developed what is now known as ranch dressing in the 1950s while working as a contractor for three years in the remote Alaskan bush, here is my version. It uses fresh herbs instead of dried, and tofu instead of the mayonnaise and cream. It’s not unimprovable, but it’s a start.

Beat together or blend 300g silken tofu, 2 minced garlic cloves, 20g finely diced onion, 10g of parsley, 10g of chives, fronds from 10g of dill (all three finely chopped), half a teaspoon of paprika, half a teaspoon of salt, black pepper, a tablespoon of lemon juice, a dash of Henderson’s Relish and 50ml of oil. Erm, that’s it.

And in the unlikely event that you’re interested, the answer to the chocolate/ranch conundrum is that there is no answer other than chocolate, which doesn’t go with ranch, and ranch which doesn’t go with chocolate. So now you know.

• Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist