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Puree Op Sorrel

A savory sorrel puree made with onions, butter, flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, salt, 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 Op Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Wash the sorrel in several waters and drain.

  2. Cook the sorrel in a large saucepan over heat, stirring continuously until it melts and boils for a few minutes.

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

Make the puree

  1. Slice the onions thinly and fry them in butter until light in color.

  2. Add flour, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, and salt to the onions, then moisten with sauce.

  3. Incorporate the drained sorrel and reduce the mixture over high heat, stirring constantly.

  4. Pass the puree through a tammy and place it in a small saucepan.

  5. Before serving, heat the puree and add 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 tart, acidic flavour that defines the puree and its bright green colour.
Onions
Soften and sweeten when fried slowly, building the base flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so the puree holds body rather than running thin.

The step that matters

Reducing the sorrel mixture over high heat. Sorrel contains acids and loses colour quickly when overcooked. Stirring constantly prevents the mixture from scorching on the base of the pan and keeps the puree smooth and bright green.

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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