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Sorrel Soup

A savory soup made with butter, parsley, lettuce, onion, sorrel, nutmeg, pepper, salt, flour, boiling water, egg yolks, cream, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Sorrel Soup

Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sorrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add parsley, lettuce, onion, sorrel, nutmeg, pepper, and salt; cover and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and gradually add boiling water or stock.

  4. Add chervil to the soup and let it boil for 10 minutes.

Finish with egg and cream

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cream or milk.

  2. Stir in the egg mixture just 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. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + sorreltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Provides the sharp, lemony acidity that defines the soup's flavour.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the soup base.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is combined with the hot liquid.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the sorrel.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg mixture just before serving. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so if the mixture boils after it goes in, it can curdle and turn grainy. Add it off the heat or at the last moment, and avoid boiling once it is combined.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, parsley, lettuce, sorrel, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, parsley, lettuce, sorrel, nutmeg, pepper. 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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