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Sorrel in a Purge

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sorrel in a Purge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash and drain the sorrel well.

  2. Melt a bit of butter in a stewpan, add the sorrel, cover, and cook gently until well done.

  3. Drain the sorrel on a fine sieve for a few minutes.

  4. Rub the drained sorrel through a plate.

  5. Return the puréed sorrel to the stewpan with a bit of butter, a little sugar, and salt.

  6. Cook it similarly to spinach, using béchamel or cream sauce instead of sauce tournée.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sorrel + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the sorrel

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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