No. 347

Sorrel, Sorrel with Herbs, and Sorrel Flemish Style

Oseille, Oseille aux Herbes et Oseille a la Flamande

Remove the stalks from a good handful of sorrel, mince it up fine, then fry it in two ounces of good butter, and moisten with two quarts of broth or water; season with salt and a dash of sugar, and let boil for fifteen minutes. Cut thin slices from some French rolls, butter them, and put them in the hot oven to brown; set them in the soup tureen and pour the soup over.

Sorrel with Herbs.—Sorrel soup may also be made by mincing fine a small handful of sorrel, half as much lettuce, and quarter as much chervil as lettuce. Melt and heat two ounces of butter in a saucepan, put in the herbs, fry them, and then moisten with two quarts and a half of broth or water, boil slowly for half an hour, and just before serving pour in gradually a thickening of four egg-yolks, a gill of cream, and one ounce of fine butter. A garnishing may be served of croutons dried in the oven, or some vermicelli.

Flemish Style.—For sorrel, Flemish style, prepare the soup as in the first article above; the only difference to observe is, that before putting in the sorrel, fry some leeks, onions, potatoes and artichoke bottoms, all minced up very fine; add the sorrel, and finish as for the above. Serve with a garnishing of rice cooked in white broth, and some green peas.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Three variations on a spring soup built from a leaf most markets now sell only in early summer, if at all. The whole thing hangs on the egg liaison in the second version and on not letting the sorrel sit in the wrong pan.

The hinge: the liaison must not boilThe four yolks, gill of cream and butter go in off the heat, or over the barest heat, stirred constantly. A single boil after they go in and the soup curdles into threads that cannot be smoothed out.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. With four yolks and an ounce of butter this thickens two and a half quarts to the consistency of thin cream, not a sauce.
A good handful of sorrelReckon on 4 to 6 oz of leaves, stalks stripped, for the two-quart version. Sorrel collapses to almost nothing, so the volume before cooking always looks absurd for the pot.
Use a non-reactive panSorrel is high in oxalic acid and will take on a metallic taste and a grey cast in aluminium, cast iron or unlined copper. Stainless or enamelled ware only. The leaves turn olive-drab within a minute of hitting the butter regardless; this is normal and no amount of care prevents it.
"Hot oven" for the breadAround 425F for the buttered slices, watching them closely; they want five to eight minutes to brown. French rolls here means a small crusty white roll, so a baguette cut on the bias serves the same purpose.
Artichoke bottomsFor the Flemish version, jarred or frozen artichoke hearts, drained and minced, stand in for the trimmed fresh bottoms Ranhofer assumed. Fry the leeks, onions, potato and artichoke until softened but not coloured before the sorrel goes in, or the sorrel will overcook while the potato is still raw.
Fifteen minutes is enoughThe first and third versions boil only a quarter hour, which is right; sorrel has no structure to break down and long cooking only flattens its acidity. The half hour given for the herb version is for the lettuce and chervil, and even that can be shortened.
SeasoningThe dash of sugar is not optional flavouring so much as a corrective to the sourness of the leaf. Add it, taste, and add more only if the soup makes you wince. If your broth is unsalted, expect to need a good deal of salt.
YieldTwo quarts serves six to eight as a first course; the herb version at two and a half quarts, enriched, serves eight.

A Little History

Sorrel soup belongs to the older European kitchen as a spring tonic, the first sharp green thing after a winter of roots, and versions of it run from the French potage a l'oseille east through the Polish and Ashkenazi szczaw and schav. Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, gives it here in the classic French sequence: the plain soup, the same soup softened with lettuce and chervil and bound with yolks, and a Flemish version padded out with leeks, potato, artichoke and peas. A la flamande was a recognised garnish convention in nineteenth-century French cookery, attaching to dishes thickened with vegetables and served with a starch garnish, and it signals heartiness above all. That a fashionable American restaurant kept three sorrel soups on file may say something about how much greengrocery the season dictated: sorrel had a few weeks, and one might guess the kitchen was expected to have more than one thing to do with it.