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Sorrel Soup.

A soup made from young sorrel leaves, butter, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Sorrel Soup.

Why it works: Sorrel and butter work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 652 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sorrel Soup.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Pick the sorrel leaves from the stalks, wash, and drain them.

  2. In a stew-pan over low heat, melt the butter and add the sorrel leaves until softened.

  3. Drain the sorrel over a sieve for two minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Return the sorrel to the stew-pan with a small bit of butter and the second stock.

  2. Reduce the mixture to half its quantity.

  3. Add another ½ pint of stock and a few tablespoons of plain meat stock.

  4. Boil everything together.

  5. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. Add a quart of stock.

  7. Gently boil for two hours before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sorrel + meattop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together51 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 leaves
Provide the main flavour and bright acidity, and break down into the body of the soup.
Butter
Softens the sorrel gently and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Second stock
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth for the soup.
Plain meat stock
Adds liquid and meaty savouriness, building the soup's overall body.

The step that matters

Reduce the mixture to half its quantity. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid. Cooking too hard or too long can dull the sorrel's bright acidity and turn it a dull olive colour.

Swap the sorrel

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat. 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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