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Stewed Sorrel
Place some sorrel that has been washed in several waters in a stewpan with a lump of butter, and stir it over the fire until it has melted. Drain the sorrel, chop it fine with some trimmings of mushrooms, put the mixture into a stewpan with some small pieces of ham and a lump of butter and fry it. Next mix in one teacupful of Spanish sauce, and allow it to stew gently by the side of the fire for an hour. Pass the puree through a fine hair-sieve, and pour it into the saucepan again with a little stock broth, one teaspoonful of sugar and a small quantity of glaze.
Sourcrout. (Fr. Choucroute; Ger. Sauerkraut).
This is a variety of pickled cabbage dear to many of our traveling classes. Sourcrout has been pronounced very wholesome by experienced chemists. It may be made and prepared for the table in several ways. The following are among the best methods of preparation: (I.) Shred fine some white-hearted cabbages, put them in a jar, and sprinkle over them one handful of salt, one-half tablespoonful of cream of tartar, and a little water. Put some of the big outside leaves of the cabbage on the top, place a cover on the jar with a weight on it, and keep it in a warm temperature. In a week or two the sourcrout will be ready for use.
Two entries have been run together on this page: a French sorrel pur"e from the professional kitchen, and a method for home-fermented sauerkraut that no longer meets current guidance. Notes on both follow.
- Why the sourcrout failsCabbage ferments reliably only when the salt is measured against the weight of the vegetable and the shreds stay under brine. "One handful of salt" and "a little water" give no dependable salt concentration, the cream of tartar contributes little beyond a slight acidification, and "a warm temperature" is too vague to control a one-to-two-week ferment; current guidance specifies both a salt weight and a held temperature. Use a modern sauerkraut recipe with weights and a temperature.
- The sorrel portionThe stewed sorrel itself is ordinary cooking and the instructions are sound. Nothing in it requires the fermentation caution above.
- Spanish sauceSauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce: veal or beef stock thickened with a dark roux and flavoured with mirepoix and tomato. A good jarred demi-glace, thinned, stands in for the teacupful called for.
- GlazeMeat glaze, or glace de viande, is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. The recipe gives no amount; a small spoonful is enough, added for gloss and body as much as for flavour.
- TeacupfulAn unstandardised period measure, variously reckoned at about a quarter-pint up to some six ounces, i.e. less than the modern 8 oz measuring cup.
- Quantity of sorrelThe original gives none. Sorrel collapses to almost nothing in the pan, so a large quantity of leaves, stems stripped, yields only a few spoonfuls of pur"e; scale to the amount of sauce you are making.
- By the side of the fireA bare simmer with the pan set off direct heat. On a modern range, the lowest burner setting, lid ajar, for the hour.
- Hair sieveA fine-mesh sieve or a tamis. A food mill on the fine plate followed by a sieve gets the same texture with less work.
- Do not use aluminium or bare cast ironSorrel is aggressively acidic and will pick up metallic flavour and grey colour. Stainless or enamelled pans throughout.
- Oxalic acidSorrel is high in oxalates, which is the source of its sharpness. Worth knowing for anyone advised to limit oxalate intake, though the quantity in a spoonful of pur"e is small.
Sorrel pur"e is a fixture of nineteenth-century French cookery, where the leaf's sharpness was tamed with butter, ham and brown sauce and then served under veal, eggs or fish rather than eaten on its own; the version here, with its Spanish sauce, mushroom trimmings and glaze, is straight professional practice from a kitchen that had espagnole and glace de viande standing ready every day. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 while he was ma"tre d'h"tel at the Waldorf, gathers such brigade methods alongside plainer domestic entries, which is why a hotel pur"e sits directly against a jar of home-fermented cabbage. The remark that sauerkraut is "dear to many of our traveling classes" and the appeal to "experienced chemists" for its wholesomeness are both worth pausing over, though what exactly they were meant to convey is a matter of interpretation.