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Sorrel Sauce

A sauce made from young sorrel, butter, consommé, cream sauce, and optional sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Sorrel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sorrel

  1. Pick and wash the sorrel thoroughly, then drain it well.

Cook and strain

  1. In a covered saucepan, add the sorrel and butter, and cook gently over low heat.

  2. After cooking, drain the sorrel in a sieve for 3 minutes.

  3. Use a wooden spoon to rub the sorrel through a tammy into a dish.

Finish the sauce

  1. Return the sorrel to the saucepan, add the consommé, and stir over heat until well mixed.

  2. After boiling for a few minutes, add the cream sauce and salt if desired.

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. Cream + saucetop 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 sharp, tangy flavour that defines the sauce and gives it its green colour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the sorrel cook gently and soften in the covered pan.
Consommé
Adds savoury depth and liquid, thinning the purée into a sauce.
Cream sauce
Adds body and smoothness, mellowing the sorrel's sharpness into a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the sorrel gently in a covered pan. Sorrel turns dull brown and loses its bright green colour when overheated. Gentle heat with the lid on wilts it quickly in its own moisture, keeping the colour and sharp flavour fresh.

Swap the sorrel

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, 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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