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Puree of Sorrel with Peas
Thoroughly wash and drain two quarts fresh sorrel, then slice them finely, place in a large saucepan with an ounce butter and cook on the fire fifteen minutes, or till the moisture is nearly evaporated, stirring once in a while. Then add pint of shelled green peas, three good-sized, peeled, sliced, raw potatoes, one sliced onion, one bean crushed garlic, two branches chervil and a pound piece of lean salt pork. Moisten with three quarts water. Season with a teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar and half teaspoon pepper. Mix well, cover the pan and let slowly boil two hours, mixing a little once in a while. Lift up the pork and save it for later use. Add two gills milk, mix well, then boil five minutes. Press the puree through a sieve into a basin, then through a Chinese strainer into a soup tureen, and serve with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A French country soup built on sorrel's sharpness, thickened with potato and enriched at the end with milk. Nothing here is difficult, but a few of the measures and vessels need translating.
- Two quarts of sorrelSorrel is measured loose here, not packed: something in the region of half a pound of leaves, though the weight of a loosely filled quart varies a good deal. Strip the coarse stems and the central rib from larger leaves before slicing.
- Gills and other measuresA gill is half a cup, so two gills of milk is one cup. A pint of shelled peas is about 10 ounces, or a pound and a quarter in the pod.
- One bean garlic"Bean" here means a single clove, crushed. It looks like an over-literal rendering of the French gousse, which properly means a pod or husk rather than a bean.
- Chinese strainerA chinois, the conical fine-mesh strainer. The double straining — sieve first, then chinois — is what separates this from a rough vegetable soup; the sieve breaks down the solids, the chinois catches sorrel fibre and pea skins.
- Use a non-reactive panSorrel is high in oxalic acid and will take on a metallic taste and grey cast in bare iron or aluminium. Stainless or enamelled cast iron throughout.
- Salt the pork's worthA pound of lean salt pork gives up a great deal of salt over two hours. Hold back the teaspoon of salt until the pork comes out, then season the puree to taste.
- ColourSorrel turns from green to a drab olive within a minute of heat, and two hours of boiling will not improve it. This is expected; the soup is meant to be a soft grey-green, not bright.
- ChervilTwo branches means two sprigs. If chervil is unavailable, a little flat parsley with a few tarragon leaves is the usual stand-in — chervil's anise note is the point.
- YieldAbout three quarts of finished soup after straining, serving eight generously. The recipe directs only that the pork be lifted out and saved "for later use."
Sorrel soup runs right across northern Europe — the French potage Germiny and soupe à l'oseille, the Polish and Ukrainian zielony barszcz and shchav, all built on the same sour leaf that grows wild in damp meadows and was for centuries a cheap source of acidity in a kitchen without lemons. The version here is plainly French in construction: the salt pork simmered whole and lifted out for later use, the finish with milk, the passage through a chinois, and the plate of croutons handed separately. It is characteristic of a certain economy — one piece of pork flavouring three quarts of soup and then going on to a second appearance at table. Sorrel is now uncommon in English-speaking markets, in part because it keeps and travels badly, which is why a soup that was once ordinary reads as unfamiliar.