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Sorrel Soup

A savory soup made with sorrel, lettuce, chervil, butter, flour, broth, cream, and egg yolks, served over toasted French rolls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Sorrel Soup

Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sorrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Cut the sorrel, lettuce, and chervil into fine shreds.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt 4 ounces of butter over medium heat for 25 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add the flour and cook for 10 minutes, stirring well to avoid lumps.

  3. Slowly add the boiling water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then add the broth after 20 minutes.

  5. In a bowl, mix the cream with the egg yolks, beat well, and strain through a sieve.

  6. Stir the cream mixture and remaining butter into the soup until melted.

Serve

  1. Slice the French rolls, brown them in the oven, and place in a soup tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the rolls and serve.

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 + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Gives the soup its characteristic sharp, sour flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and is stirred in at the end for silkiness.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Egg yolks
Combined with cream to enrich and thicken the soup as it is stirred in.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
French rolls
Soak up the soup and provide a bread base in the tureen.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and cream mixture into the soup. Egg yolks can curdle if they get too hot. Stirring the mixture in gradually, off the heat or at low heat, keeps it smooth and thickens it gently.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, chervil, butter, flour, pepper, cream, 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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