Skip to main content
Sauce

Sorrel Sauce

A sauce made from finely chopped sorrel, onions, ham, butter, and citrus, seasoned with pepper, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sorrel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the sorrel very fine and squeeze out all the water.

  2. Chop the onions.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew pan, add the ham and butter.

  2. Add the sorrel and onions, then set the pan over low heat to simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Add enough coulis to achieve the desired sauce quantity.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, squeeze in the orange and lemon juice, then add pepper, salt, and sugar to taste.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sorrel + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together459 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 sharp, lemony flavour and green colour that define the sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften during the long, gentle simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Ham
Contributes salty, savoury meatiness that flavours the base.
Coulis
Adjusts the body and quantity of the sauce to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Simmer the sorrel and onions gently. Sorrel turns dull and brownish if overheated, and gentle low heat lets the onions soften and sweeten without scorching or sticking to the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, ham, butter, orange, lemon, pepper, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, ham, butter, orange, lemon, pepper, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Cold Orange SauceCold Orange Sauce11 recipesHot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipes