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Sorrel Puree, with Sauce, for Garnitures

A puree of cooked sorrel mixed with Allemande sauce, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 89 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sorrel Puree, with Sauce, for Garnitures

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Prepare and cook the sorrel as directed in recipe No. 1426.

  2. Rub the cooked sorrel through a sieve into a saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 4 tablespoons of Allemande sauce and cook until reduced to the proper consistency.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Before serving, mix in a piece of butter until well combined.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sorrel + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sorrel + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together419 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Supplies the puree's main flavor, with a sharp, lemony acidity and bright green color.
Allemande sauce
Adds body and richness, helping the puree thicken and turn smooth as it reduces.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky texture and a glossy finish when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Reducing to the proper consistency. As water evaporates the puree thickens, but Allemande sauce is built on egg yolks and cream, which can curdle or turn grainy if it is boiled too hard or too long. Keep the heat gentle and stop when the consistency is right.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, nutmeg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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