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Soup

Sorrel Soup Without Meat

A vegetable soup of sorrel, chervil, lettuce, and leek, finished with egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Sorrel Soup Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the sorrel, chervil, lettuce, and leek very finely.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, stew the chopped vegetables with butter and salt until tender.

  2. Add the vegetable stock or water and let it stew again.

  3. Before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolks and cream or milk, ensuring it does not boil.

  4. Season to taste and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + leektop 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 sharp, lemony acidity that defines the soup's flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a smooth, creamy texture when gently heated.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and softens the soup's flavour and mouthfeel.
Butter
Adds fat and carries flavour while the vegetables soften.
Leek
Contributes a mild onion-like sweetness as it stews.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the soup boils after they are added, the proteins scramble and the soup turns grainy and curdled instead of smooth.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, chervil, leek, butter, egg, cream. 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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