Skip to main content
Main

Eggs with a Puree of Sorrel

A savory dish of boiled eggs served atop a vegetable puree of sorrel, beetroot, lettuce, chervil, and spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Eggs with a Puree of Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the vegetables in water for a few minutes.

  2. Transfer the vegetables to cold water and drain.

Make the puree

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the vegetables and flour to the butter.

  3. Moisten the mixture with milk.

  4. Stir well.

  5. Let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes.

  6. Stir the yolks of the remaining eggs into the puree, but do not let it boil.

Prepare and serve the eggs

  1. Boil 6 eggs for 5 minutes.

  2. Place the boiled eggs in cold water and remove the shells.

  3. Place the mixture in a dish.

  4. Arrange the eggs on top of the mixture.

  5. 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.

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. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beetroot + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Sorrel + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 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 sharp, acidic flavour and green colour of the puree.
Spinach
Adds body and a mild, earthy flavour to the green puree.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the puree.
Flour
Thickens the butter and vegetable mixture so it holds together as a puree.
Milk
Moistens the mixture and adds creaminess to the puree.
Eggs
Provide richness and, when yolks are stirred in gently, help thicken the puree.

The step that matters

Stir the yolks into the puree without boiling. Egg yolks are proteins that set with heat. If the puree boils after the yolks go in, they can curdle and turn grainy, spoiling the smooth texture.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sorrel, beetroot, milk, lettuce, chervil, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sorrel, beetroot, milk, lettuce, chervil, 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.

You might also like

Spinach SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesSorrel SoupSorrel Soup23 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipes