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Of Sorrel

A sauce made from butter, sorrel, and Espagnole sauce, simmered and seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Of Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash and chop the sorrel finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Add the chopped sorrel and cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted.

  4. Strain the sorrel, pressing it through the strainer to extract the liquid.

  5. Return the strained sorrel to the saucepan, add a moderate amount of Espagnole sauce, and simmer for 30 minutes.

  6. Season with salt 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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sorrel + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sorrel + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 sharp, lemony acidity that gives the sauce its characteristic flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel while carrying the sorrel's flavor.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the body and savory base that the sorrel is simmered into.

The step that matters

Cooking the sorrel until wilted. Sorrel turns dull olive-brown and loses its bright flavor if cooked too long or at high heat. Cooking gently until just wilted keeps its color and tang, and the stirring prevents scorching in the butter.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Sorrelthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce. 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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