No. 728

Puree of Sorrel

Puree d'Oseille

Pick and clean well one pound of sorrel leaves, and put them into a saucepan with a gill of water and some salt; dissolve while stirring with a spoon, and then pour it into a colander so as to drain it properly; now rub it through a sieve. Prepare a little blond roux (No. 163) with one ounce of butter and the same of flour, add to it the sorrel, and let it cook in this for a few moments without ceasing to stir; moisten with a little good gravy; let the puree reduce, and just when ready to serve, mix in a little fine butter and some meat glaze (No. 402).

← No. 727 Puree of Pumpkin Garnishings No. 729 Puree of Spinach or of Chiccory →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French sorrel purée from Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), meant as a garnish or bed for veal, eggs or fish rather than a dish in itself. The method is simple; the difficulty is sourcing sorrel and handling its acidity.

The hinge: cook it fast and in the right panSorrel collapses to a khaki purée within two or three minutes of hitting heat, which is what Ranhofer means by "dissolve while stirring." Use stainless steel or enamel, never bare aluminium, cast iron or unlined copper, as the oxalic acid pulls a metallic taste and grey colour from reactive metal.
A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz. With a pound of leaves you barely need it; sorrel releases plenty of its own liquid.
Blond rouxThis recipe itself gives equal weights, one ounce each of butter and flour; a blond roux is cooked only to a pale straw colour, with no browning. One ounce of each is about 2 tablespoons butter and a scant 1/4 cup flour.
Meat glazeHis No. 402, glace de viande, is brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Commercial demi-glace or a reduced veal stock stands in; a teaspoon or two is enough, and it goes in off the heat with the finishing butter so it does not break.
"Good gravy"Not thickened pan gravy in the American sense but jus — clear roasting juices or a light brown stock. Add it a little at a time; the purée should hold a soft ribbon, not pour.
Sourcing sorrelGarden or French sorrel appears at farmers' markets in spring and early summer and is easy to grow. It is not the same as spinach, which has none of the sharpness the dish exists for. Strip the leaves from any tough central ribs before weighing.
Salt and acid balanceA pound of sorrel reduces to a fiercely sour purée. The butter, glaze and flour are all there to blunt it; taste before serving and add a pinch of sugar if it is still aggressive.
YieldA pound of leaves cooks down to a small quantity of finished puree, enough to garnish several plates and correspondingly fewer if it is serving as a bed.

A Little History

Sorrel puree has a long association with veal, shad and poached eggs: the oxalic acid that makes the leaf sour cuts through fat and rich sauces the way lemon does. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, placed it in the garnishings chapter of The Epicurean alongside purees of pumpkin, spinach and chicory -- a set of interchangeable soft green and orange beds, of a kind a kitchen of that scale might well have kept warm through service. The cross-references to numbered recipes for roux and meat glaze are characteristic of the book: it was written for professionals who already had those preparations standing, not for a household cook starting from nothing. Sorrel largely disappeared from American markets in the twentieth century, which is why a leaf once common enough to warrant its own entry now has to be hunted down.