Why it works: Sorrel and milk work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 140 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓
Cream of Sorrel Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sorrel
Wash the sorrel leaves and stems thoroughly and chop them with a silver knife.
Make the soup
Cook the minced sorrel in the stock for 15 minutes.
Strain the mixture through a fine colander back into the stock.
Return the strained soup to the heat and add the milk and baking soda.
Cook for a few more minutes until heated through and slightly frothy.
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.
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Sorrel + milktop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together140 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
- Provides the tangy, sour flavour that defines the soup.
- Milk
- Adds richness and softens the sharp sorrel flavour, giving a creamy body.
- Baking soda
- Neutralises some of the acid in the sorrel and helps it froth slightly.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base in which the sorrel cooks and softens.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda with the milk. Baking soda reacts with the sorrel's acids and releases carbon dioxide, so adding too much or boiling too hard can make the soup taste soapy or foam over.
“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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