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Puree Op Sorrel

A savory sorrel puree made with onions, butter, flour, spices, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and sorrel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 89 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Puree Op Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Wash sorrel in several waters and drain.

  2. Place sorrel in a large saucepan over heat, stirring constantly until melted and boiled for a few minutes.

  3. Transfer sorrel to a large sieve to drain excess water.

Make the puree

  1. Fry onions in butter until light in color.

  2. Add flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, and salt to onions, then moisten with sauce.

  3. Stir in prepared sorrel and reduce puree over high heat, stirring constantly.

  4. Pass puree through a fine sieve into a small saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat puree and stir in a pat of butter and a piece of glaze 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.

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. Nutmeg + sorreltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + sorreltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + sorreltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together419 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 a sharp, tangy acidity that defines the puree.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften and turn light golden in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the puree.
Flour
Thickens the puree so it holds a spoonable, smooth consistency.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the sorrel with a touch of sweetness.
Nutmeg
Adds warm aromatic flavor that complements the greens and onions.

The step that matters

Reducing the puree over high heat. Stirring constantly prevents the thickened puree from sticking and scorching on the pan base. Reducing concentrates the flavor and sets the final texture, so stopping too early leaves it thin and stopping too late can turn it dry or burnt.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, sauce, sorrel):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, sauce, sorrel. 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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