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Sorrel Salad
Procure a quantity of sorrel, wash it well in several waters and place it one a sieve to drain; if the leaves are large break them in halves, but if small they can be left whole. Place the sorrel in a bowl with a variety of other salad plants (such as may be in season), the sorrel being too sour to eat alone, cover it with a salad dressing in which the vinegar is left out, and serve. Common field sorrel is excellent in vegetable salads mixed with leaves of dandelion and served with a bacon dressing.
A salad built on a single principle: sorrel supplies the acid, so the dressing does not have to. Everything else follows from that.
- Leave the vinegar out, and mean itSorrel's sharpness comes chiefly from oxalic acid and its salts, which read on the palate much like vinegar. Dress with oil, salt, pepper and perhaps a little mustard or shallot only; adding vinegar on top gives a salad that tastes flatly sour rather than bright.
- Which sorrelGarden sorrel (Rumex acetosa) has arrow-shaped leaves; French or buckler-leaf sorrel (R. scutatus) has smaller shield-shaped leaves. Both turn up at farmers' markets in spring and early autumn. "Common field sorrel" is usually sheep sorrel, R. acetosella, smaller and sharper; use less of it. Wood sorrel (Oxalis) is a different plant altogether, also sour.
- ProportionSorrel works as a seasoning green, not the base. Roughly one part sorrel to three or four parts milder leaves — butter lettuce, mâche, young spinach, dandelion — is about the limit before the bowl turns puckering.
- Washing "in several waters"Sorrel grows low and holds grit in the leaf axils. Three changes of cold water in a large bowl, lifting the leaves out each time rather than pouring off, is what the instruction means. Dry thoroughly or the dressing will slide off.
- Dress at the tableSorrel leaves are thin and wilt within minutes of meeting oil and salt. Toss immediately before serving. Tearing rather than cutting, as directed, also slows the bruising and darkening at the edges.
- Bacon dressingBacon dressings of this period were generally served warm: bacon fried to crisp, the leaves tossed in a few spoons of the hot fat with the bacon crumbled over. Because the sorrel is already acidic, you can leave out the splash of vinegar usually added to deglaze and use a little water to lift the browned bits instead.
- OxalatesRaw sorrel is high in oxalic acid. A salad portion is unremarkable, but anyone prone to kidney stones or on a low-oxalate diet may want to treat it as a garnish rather than a course.
- YieldNot given. A quarter pound of sorrel folded into a pound of mixed leaves dresses a salad for six as a first course.
Sorrel was a kitchen-garden staple in Europe for centuries before lemons were cheap, valued precisely for the sourness that makes it awkward to eat alone — it went into soups, sauces for fish, and purées served with veal and eggs, the French sauce à l'oseille being the best-known survivor. Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maitre d'hotel rather than its working chef, but the book's repertoire is largely a French one, and the appearance of sorrel here reflects that tradition; the recipe also notes that the common field weed will serve as well as the cultivated plant. The pairing with dandelion and hot bacon fat is older and more rustic than the hotel dining room — a spring salad of foraged bitter greens wilted in pork drippings is documented across French, German and Pennsylvania German cooking, and Oscar is simply acknowledging that the same trick works with sorrel.