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To Preserve Sorrel

A preserved herb mixture of sorrel, leeks, parsley, chervil, and purslane, seasoned with salt and covered in melted butter.

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

Prepare

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

Stew and season

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

  2. When the juice begins to dry and the mixture thickens, add salt.

Jar and seal

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

  2. 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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Provides the main sour, acidic flavour and bulk of the preserved mass.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like sweetness and body as they soften during stewing.
Melted butter
Forms a fat layer over the cooled herbs that seals out air.

The step that matters

Stirring while the herbs stew. Stirring continually keeps the herbs from sticking and scorching on the base of the kettle, which would add a burnt taste. The herbs release their own juice, and it must be allowed to evaporate gradually so the mixture thickens without burning.

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.

“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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