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To Preserve Sorrel

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Preserve Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick and chop the sorrel, leeks, parsley, chervil, and purslane finely in a kettle.

  2. Stew the herbs in their own juice, stirring continually to prevent burning.

  3. When the juice begins to dry and the mixture thickens, add coarse sea salt.

  4. Transfer the mixture into jars and let it cool.

  5. Cover the cooled mixture with melted butter.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sorrel + purslanetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + purslanetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sorrel + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, leek, chervil, purslane, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, leek, chervil, purslane, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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