Two of our earliest spring vegetables are rhubarb and sorrel. Everyone knows rhubarb and its tart bite. But sorrel offers much the same tartness in the form of a leafy green. It is a plant known and cultivated from ancient times in Europe and, like rhubarb, owes its sharp tang to a little oxalic acid. As a result, it is splendid for perking up dishes that might otherwise seem too rich or bland.?One great way to prepare it as a flavor enhancer is simply to roll up a big bunch of leaves like a cigar, slice them finely across the grain, and saute them in lots of butter until the water is gone from the butter and the shredded leaves “melt.” (They are good at melting.) Then, you can just toss this butter/sorrel mixture into anything you think would benefit from perking up. You can also add heavy cream to this mixture, cook it down, and use that as a sauce. This is the essence of a very famous sauce for fish, both in France and Germany. (You can, of course, add diced shallots as you saute the sorrel and/or add some wine and cook that down too – all for a little more depth of flavor in the sauce.)??Sorrel has one trick that you might want to anticipate. Sorrel starts out bright green, but turns olive-colored as it cooks. You can turn your sauce bright green again by adding some some pureed uncooked sorrel after the cooking is done. Or you can combine the sorrel with spinach or some other green that keeps its color when cooked. That’s what we do at our house when we make the soup described below.
Sorrel Soup (chilled)
2 cups of sorrel leaves (or 1 cups sorrel, one cup spinach), chopped roughly
1 large cucumber, seeded, peeled, and chopped
1 clove garlic?4+ cups of chicken stock (or water)
2/3 cups of heavy cream
salt
a dash of Tabasco?some
finely chopped parsley or chervil
Place the chopped sorrel, the chopped cucumber, the clove of garlic, and the chicken stock or water in a saucepan. Boil them gently until the cucumber is soft. Puree this in a food processor or a food mill. Chill the soup. Before serving, whisk in the cream and add some Tabasco sauce, salt, and pepper to taste. Serve sprinkled with a little of the finely chopped parsley or chervil.??With thanks to Geraldine Holt, Recipes from a French Herb Garden; The New Larousee Gastronomique, Charlotte Turgeon, American Editor (1977); and Alex Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food (1999).
-SD
