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SORREL, STEWED (for fricandeaux, roasts, etc.)
Wash half a peck of picked sorrel leaves in several waters, drain them on a sieve, and put them into an unglazed earthen jar in a very slow oven, and let them stew gently until quite tender. Mix an ounce of butter or a little salad-oil with them, add a little pepper, salt, and cayenne, and beat the leaves till smooth. Serve immediately.
A purée rather than a stew: sorrel collapses in its own moisture and needs no added liquid at all. The whole point of the covered jar in a barely warm oven is to stop it catching and to keep the pan out of the equation.
- Half a peckA peck is 8 dry quarts, so this is 4 quarts of picked leaves — roughly 1 to 1 1/2 lb once stalks are stripped. Sorrel loses about nine-tenths of its bulk, so expect somewhere near a cup and a half of finished purée.
- A very slow ovenSomewhere around 200-250F. Sorrel gives up plenty of water and can scorch at the edges in a dry, open dish, so a cover helps, though the recipe does not call for one. The recipe gives no time, only 'until quite tender'.
- Unglazed earthenware, and whySorrel is high in oxalic acid, which reacts with iron, aluminium and unlined copper — the purée turns grey-brown and picks up a metallic edge. Earthenware, enamel, glass or stainless steel all work; a bare cast-iron pan does not.
- The colourNothing will keep it green. Sorrel goes from bright green to a dull khaki soon after it meets heat, and no amount of care prevents it. This is expected, not a fault.
- Beating smoothA wooden spoon against the side of the jar gives a coarse texture. A brief pass with a stick blender or a push through a sieve gives the smoother purée the instruction to 'beat the leaves till smooth' implies.
- SeasoningSorrel is sharply acidic on its own, so taste before adding anything beyond the butter. The recipe's pepper and cayenne together make for a fair amount of heat; a light hand with the cayenne is prudent.
- ServingEnough as an accompaniment for four to six. It works as a sauce or relish alongside veal, pork, roast goose or oily fish, where the acid does the work a lemon would.
- OxalatesA normal portion of sorrel is unremarkable, but this recipe concentrates a large quantity into a small dish. Anyone prone to kidney stones may prefer a smaller serving.
Sorrel was a standard English kitchen-garden green for centuries before lemons were cheap — its sourness comes from oxalic acid, and the plant's older names, sour dock and green sauce, describe what it was used for. Cassell's dates from the later nineteenth century, by which time the French treatment — oseille stewed to a purée and set under a fricandeau of veal — was familiar in professional kitchens. The instruction to use an unglazed earthen jar rather than a saucepan reflects the way acidic greens react with metal. Sorrel became uncommon in British shops during the twentieth century and is now more easily grown than bought.