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Sorrel Sauce

A sauce made from wilted sorrel, butter, cream, egg yolks, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sorrel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Wash the sorrel and place it in a saucepan without water.

  2. Cook slowly until wilted.

  3. Add butter and mix well.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the cream and egg yolks together.

  2. Combine the cream mixture with the sorrel and stir until smooth.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sorrel + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sorrel + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sorrel + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Gives the sauce its bright, tart, lemony flavour and green colour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, full body to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken and emulsify the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Cook the sorrel slowly until wilted. Gentle heat softens the leaves evenly and helps keep their bright green colour. High heat turns sorrel dull and olive-brown and can make its sharp flavour harsh and bitter.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Sorrelthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg. 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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