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Sorrel Soup

A savory soup made with sorrel, butter, flour, stock, egg yolks, milk or cream, finished with butter and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Sorrel Soup

Why it works: Sorrel and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sorrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Wash, pick, and cut the sorrel into shreds.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and stir in the sorrel for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Pour in the stock and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Skim the soup, then stir in the beaten egg yolks mixed with the milk or cream. Do not allow the soup to boil again to prevent curdling.

  5. Just before serving, stir in the tablespoon of butter and serve with slices of fried bread.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the sharp, lemony acidity that defines the soup's flavour.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when stirred in gently.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softens the sorrel's sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and milk or cream. Egg yolks thicken by setting with gentle heat. If the soup boils again after they are added, the proteins curdle and the texture turns grainy, so keep it below a boil.

Swap the sorrel

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Sorrelthe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, milk, bread. 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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