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Sorrel Puree, for Garnitures

A savory sorrel puree made with butter, flour, broth, milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Puree, for Garnitures

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Combine sorrel and water in a saucepan. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until cooked.

  3. Drain the sorrel in a colander. Rub it through a fine sieve after 20 minutes.

Make the puree

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring well.

  2. Add the sieved sorrel and moisten with broth. Cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Mix the milk with the egg yolks. Stir into the sorrel mixture until well combined.

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.

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

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

  3. Sorrel + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together419 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 main flavor and green color, becoming a smooth puree when rubbed through a sieve.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and forms the base for the flour roux.
All-purpose flour
Cooked with the butter to form a roux that thickens the puree.
Broth
Moistens the sieved sorrel and adds savory depth to the puree.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the sharpness of the sorrel.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the puree when stirred in, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the milk and egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot or are added too quickly. Mixing them with milk first and stirring them into the warm puree gently helps them blend smoothly and thicken it evenly.

Swap the sorrel

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

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

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