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Semolina and Sorrel
Prepare and strain into another saucepan a consomme. Remove the stalks and stale leaves, if any, from a quart fresh sorrel; thoroughly wash, drain and cut into julienne strips; gradually sprinkle two ounces of semolina into the consomme, briskly mixing while adding it; drop in the sorrel, lightly mix and boil for fifteen minutes, occasionally mixing meanwhile. Pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A clear soup thickened with fine semolina and sharpened with sorrel. The original assumes you already have consommé on hand and never says how much, which is the one gap you have to fill yourself.
- Quantity of consomméThe recipe never says. Two ounces of semolina and a quart of leaves would suit something in the region of 1.5 to 2 quarts (6-8 cups) of clear stock; with much less liquid the semolina will thicken the soup noticeably as it stands.
- A quart of sorrelThat is a volume of loose leaves, not a weight: roughly 2-3 oz / 60-90 g, which cooks down to almost nothing. Buy the whole bunch if you find sorrel at all, as it wilts within days.
- Two ounces of semolinaAbout 1/3 cup of fine semolina (semolino), not the coarse couscous-grade sort. Fine grain is what allows it to disperse and swell in fifteen minutes.
- The hinge: sprinkle, do not dumpAdd the semolina in a thin rain from your fingers into simmering, moving liquid while whisking. Tipped in at once it hydrates on the outside and forms lumps that never break down.
- Colour and timing of the sorrelSorrel turns from bright green to olive-khaki within a minute of hitting hot liquid; nothing prevents this. The full fifteen minutes is for the semolina, so if the drab colour bothers you, hold back a small handful of raw julienne to scatter over the tureen at the table.
- Pan materialSorrel is high in oxalic acid, which reacts with bare cast iron and unlined aluminium and gives the soup a metallic taste and grey cast. Use stainless steel or enamel.
- SeasoningSorrel brings sharp acidity but no salt, and a good consommé is already seasoned; taste at the end rather than salting early, since fifteen minutes at a boil will concentrate the broth somewhat.
- YieldOn the quantity of consommé assumed above, four to six as a first course. It thickens on standing and is best ladled straight from the pot.
Semolina soups run right through European cookery of the period: durum semolina was cheap, kept well, and turned a thin broth into something more sustaining, which is part of why it turns up in nursery and invalid cookery as well as at table. Sorrel is the older partner here, a garden herb grown for its oxalic sourness long before lemons were a household staple, and a standard sharpening green in French and Central European kitchens, best known in potage santé and in the sorrel purées served with fish. The pairing of a starch and an acid leaf in a clear consommé brings together French technique in the consommé, Italian semolina, and a herb any kitchen garden would have had to hand.