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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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Illustration of Sorrel Soup.Illustration

Why it works: Sorrel and meat work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 51 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sorrel + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together51 recipes

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

  2. Butter + meattop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sorrel + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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.

“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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