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Puree of Sorrel

A savory sorrel puree made with onions, butter, flour, spices, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 89 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Puree of Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Pick and wash the sorrel in several waters, then drain it.

  2. Place the sorrel in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until melted and boiled for a few minutes.

  3. Transfer the sorrel to a fine sieve to drain excess water.

Make the puree

  1. Melt the butter in another saucepan.

  2. Fry the onions until light in color.

  3. Add the flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, and salt to the onions.

  4. Moisten the onions with the sauce.

  5. Stir in the prepared sorrel.

  6. Reduce the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly.

  7. Pass the puree through a fine sieve into a small saucepan.

  8. Heat the puree.

  9. Stir in a pat of butter and a piece of glaze.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sorrel + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sorrel + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together419 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 tart, leafy flavor and bulk of the puree once cooked down.
Onions
Add sweetness and body as they soften and brown lightly in the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Flour
Thickens the puree by binding the liquid with the cooked onions and sorrel.

The step that matters

Reduce the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly. Sorrel and sauce release liquid that must evaporate to reach a thick puree. Constant stirring prevents the flour-thickened mixture from scorching or sticking to the pan bottom.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, butter, flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, butter, flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, sauce. 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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