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Potage a LA Puree u’oSEILLE, or Sorrel Soup

A savory sorrel soup made with butter, consommé, plain sauce, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potage a LA Puree u’oSEILLE, or Sorrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Pick and wash the sorrel well, then squeeze it and stew on low heat with butter until done.

  2. Drain the sorrel for 2 minutes on a fine sieve, then return it to a stewpan with a small bit of butter on low heat.

Make the soup

  1. Once the butter is melted, add ½ pint of consommé and reduce.

  2. Add another ½ pint of consommé, then mix in 7-8 tablespoons of plain sauce.

  3. Rub the mixture through a tammy, adding 1 quart of consommé while passing it.

  4. Let it boil gently for 2 hours before serving.

Finish

  1. Mix 6 eggs and ½ pint of cream together and add to the soup just before serving.

  2. If the flavor is too weak, mix in some beef stock.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sorrel + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sorrel + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel
Provides the soup's main green flavor and its bright, sharp acidity.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and helps the sorrel stew softly.
Consommé
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the sorrel flavor.
Eggs
Add richness and body to the soup when mixed in at the end.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. Egg proteins set when heated and can curdle or turn grainy if the soup boils after they go in. Adding the mixture just before serving and keeping the soup hot rather than boiling keeps it smooth and silky.

Swap the sorrel

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Sorrelthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, 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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