Skip to main content
Main

Sorrel Soup

A soup made with sorrel, lettuce, tarragon, chervil, cream, butter, stock, béchamel sauce, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Sorrel Soup

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 ↓

Sorrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash the sorrel and lettuce, then chop them finely.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the chopped sorrel and lettuce. Cook while stirring for about 5 minutes.

  3. Add the stock, reduce the heat slightly, and let it simmer gently for about 30 minutes.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve to create a puree.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the puree to a clean stewpan and add the béchamel sauce. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg, then reheat.

  2. Add the tarragon and chervil, cleaned and cut into shreds, and cook for a few more minutes.

  3. In a bowl, whisk the cream and egg yolks together, then stir them into the soup. Cook briefly to set the eggs, then serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Chervil + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 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
Gives the soup its sharp, acidic flavour and green colour once cooked down.
Butter
Enriches the flavour and carries the greens while they soften in the pan.
Béchamel sauce
Adds body and a smooth, creamy texture to the puree.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup when gently heated, giving it a richer, silkier body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Cabbage lettuce
Adds bulk and mild vegetable sweetness to the puree.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolks into the soup. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the soup boils after they are added they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly while the eggs set.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, tarragon, chervil, cream, pepper, nutmeg, lettuce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, tarragon, chervil, cream, pepper, nutmeg, lettuce. 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

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes