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Salad

Sorrel Salad

A salad of young sorrel dressed with olive oil, vinegar, or mayonnaise and chili, optionally mixed with lettuces, tarragon, and green onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Sorrel Salad

Why it works: Sorrel and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sorrel Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take young tender sorrel from the stems, wash it gently, and drain well.

  2. Shake it dry in a salad basket or a soft cloth.

  3. Arrange the sorrel lightly in a bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Just before serving, dress with olive oil and a small amount of vinegar, or use Mayonnaise mixed with chili.

  2. Optionally, mix the sorrel with an equal amount of tender lettuces and sprinkle with tarragon.

  3. Add chopped green onions or eschalots if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sorrel + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Forms the leafy base of the salad, giving its bright, sharp flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smooth richness that coats the leaves and carries flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the dressing and sharpens the sorrel.
Mayonnaise
Provides a creamy, fatty dressing that softens the sharpness of the sorrel.
Tender lettuces
Add mild bulk and a gentle texture that dilutes the sorrel's sourness.

The step that matters

Dress just before serving. Acid in vinegar and the salt-free dressing will wilt and soften delicate sorrel leaves over time, so dressing late keeps them crisp and bright.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, olive, vinegar, lettuce, tarragon):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, olive, vinegar, lettuce, tarragon. 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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