Sorrel - from weed to haute cuisine

"Sorrel bridges the divide rather splendidly between herb and vegetable." Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

This is one of the photographs I took on that blog post inspiration walk recently. It was a weed that I see a lot of and which I have often wondered whether it is horseradish. I would love to find actual horseradish.

In the last few days I have been feeling very unmotivated and uninspired. I even pondered on giving the whole thing up, but then what else would I do with my spare time - of which I have a lot?

So today I revisited those photos and dragged that photograph into Google Images, whereupon I was told that this was Rumex - wild sorrel otherwise known as dock. Which was a minor surprise as I did not know they were the same thing. Dock was what you rubbed your skin with when you were stung by nettles, and dock leaves always grew next to the nettles. Just in case. Yes they did.

Here in Australia, there are now apparently at least 30 species of rumex, so I'm not at all sure which one mine is. But pretty soon I found the website of Diego Bonetto of Sydney but originally of Piedmont, who headed his page on what he refers to as Yellow Dock with the rather lovely botanical drawing in the centre below. He grew up on a farm in Piedmont, and became accustomed, as many Italians are, to foraging for food. When he came to Australia, before long he found that people were interested in what wild plants could be eaten, and so he has built a business around running tours and workshops, and has also published a book. I just wish I could join one of his tours - although I did write about Fashionable Foraging back in 2023 and did in fact find a course here in Melbourne. Suffice to say I have yet to get around to joining it.

Anyway this genus - rumex - is found around the world and of those 30 odd varieties found here, some are native and some are imported.

And here are four basic facts I have now learnt - rumex is closely related to oxalis - which, if it weren't for the rather beautiful yellow flowers that dance in the sunlight - would be wonderful as a lawn - as it sort of is in our back garden. It's the brightest green bit of our garden, and curiously the rabbits don't seem to eat it. Rumex is not, however, related to quinoa - I though it might be because of the flowers and therefore seed - lots of them - a rusty red. It is also not related to a hibiscus plant in Jamaica, that the Jamaicans call sorrel. And finally, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - possibly the world's most famous forager says: "It is quite possibly the easiest crop in the world to raise".

Which is just as well as Jane Grigson (and many others in so many words) says: "Sorrel is rarely, if ever, on sale." Certainly not here in Australia anyway, although maybe in some exclusive Farmer's market somewhere.

Indeed - even I can grow it. Or at least rumex sanguineus - a red ribbed variety, which is rather lovely. My plant which continues to grow in spite of everything - well in spite of nothing - because that's precisely what I do for it. I planted it and it grows, although just to demonstrate my gardening incompetence it has hardly taken over the veggie patch, which it theoretically should have done by now. And I should indeed use it if only in the form of a few leaves added to our regular green salads.

The 'real' cultivated sorrel, shown here, which looks remarkably like spinach (unrelated) is Rumex acetosa, much loved by the French, the English and the Eastern Europeans.

The French in particular, if you are to believe Jane Grigson, all have a patch growing in the nearest spot to their kitchen in their potagers. To illustrate this she tells a short story of visiting a friend who is doing up her cottage and barn, when suddenly:

"She remembers food and rushes to the nearest corner of the vegetable patch to grab a couple of handfuls of sorrel. In a quarter of an hour we are eating a lively soup, fresh and agreeably sharp, that she has made with the minimum of trouble." Jane Grigson

It is indeed lovely because sorrel has a distinctive taste:

"This bright green leaf is startlingly, puckeringly sour and lemony, but with a wonderful lightness: it tastes green, it tastes of spring. It's a generous and forgiving plant, both to the cook and to the gardener." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Sort of forgiving when it comes to cooking, because it has two things against it here, apart from it being difficult to find. It is the champion of all the green leaves that we cook in that like all green leaves it reduces in size when cooked - almost to nothing in the case of sorrel - so thank goodness for it's strong taste:

"giving you either a thread of lemony flavour or a real, mouth-filling whack of it, depending on how much you use." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

The other thing against it is, that when you cook it, it goes a very unappetising khaki colour, which you can either hide with other ingredients, or freshen your dish at the end by adding either a paste you have concocted with uncooked leaves - like a pesto, or just adding lots of shredded or chopped fresh green leaves. Jane Grigson also gives credit to Margaret Costa for her version of Sorrel soup, whereby she makes a base with onions, potatoes and stock, and then whizzes it all up with the fresh sorrel, which is briefly reheated before adding some cream and chives to serve.

However, maybe one should just embrace the brown, as in this Sorrel soup, French style on the Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook website, which is based on Julia Child's in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which Jane Grigson describes as:

"The best known of French sorrel soups is made purely of sorrel and water, with an enriching finale of egg yolks and cream. "

It's a French housewife's go to soup, but it's not just French housewives who have embraced sorrel as the perfect soup. Virtuall every Eastern European country including Russia has a version which they call - in their own languages - 'green borscht'. It's not quite as simple as the French version however, as there are other vegetables in there - usually potatoes, and carrots and sometimes chicken as well - garnished with parsley and sour cream. This version is from Valentina's Corner, Valentina being Russian. Poland seemed to be a major contributor to the genre, but as I said, every Eeastern European country seemed to have one. Obviously the Wikipedia entry for sorrel soup was written by somebody from Eastern Europe, because you get the impression that they are the only people to make sorrel soup.

Before we leave soup and housewives, I should mention, via Elizabeth David, that another way of countering that brown look is to hide it with lentils. Her recipe is so simple you would wonder whether it's worth giving it a go. Surely it can't be "one of the best of sorrel soups' as she describes it. Because basically all you do is cook some brown lentils in water for a long time, until soft. Purée them, chop a handful of sorrel leaves 'fairly finely', cook in with the lentils for 10 minutes and then, just before serving stir in some cream. Really?

Ottolenghi has a recipe for a red lentil soup with sorrel somewhere.

We have moved from weed status - useable but actually with not as refined a taste as the cultivated by housewives sorrel - the next stage up the culinary tree. So let's move to haute cuisine - well to a lesser or greater degree.

And before we leave soup, no less an haute cuisine practitioner than Carême, has a fairly simple version he called Potage à l'oseille claire:

" Wash and chop a good handful of sorrel, a lettuce and some chervil. Then melt them in a little scraped and sieved bacon fat, or in butter. Tip them into some consommé, prepared in the usual manner. Add a pinch of sugar and skim the soup free of fat. After simmering for half an hour, pour the soup onto some little croûtons of bread dried hard in the oven. Serve."

Of course there are little hidden haute cuisine processes - 'consommé prepared in the usual manner' would be a long and complicated process in an haute cuisine. 'Skim the soup free of fat' - well harder than it sounds, and we housewives probably wouldn't bother. As for scraped and sieved bacon fat - well Jane Grigson suggests just chopping and pulverising it - or else, doing as Carême suggests - use butter. Still it's actually quite simple and seems to suggest that you don't need a lot of sorrel to make a big difference.

Which brings us to the modern day versions of haute cuisine - beginning with Jamie Oliver - who would never, of course describe himself as in any way a practitioner of haute cuisine, but he is a trained chef, and most of his recipes do have a cheffy kind of twist, as in his Beautiful sorrel risotto with crumbled goat's cheese. Maybe we've all learnt to make risotto these days, it's not very difficult after all, but I suspect that most people still put it in the category of things that they would eat in a restaurant rather than make at home. OK goat's cheese is relatively commonplace these days I guess, but in this case they are baked in the oven with some fennel seeds and chilli and served on the side to be crumbled into the finished risotto, which has had the briefly sautéed sorrel added at the last minute.

Sauce - not from a bottle but a sauce to serve with things. I give you two here from the same level of 'haute cuisine' - Yotam Ottolenghi - 'haute' in the sense that he is associated with the definitely not everyday:

"One of my favourite seasonal sauces is to whizz up equal weights of fresh sorrel and Greek yoghurt with a garlic clove, some olive oil and a little Dijon mustard. It takes seconds to make, and I drizzle it over just about anything"

Or:

"It makes a glorious pesto that goes brilliantly with grilled mackerel – put 75g of sorrel, 15g parsley, 50g pistachios, two peeled garlic cloves, a teaspoon of cider vinegar, half a teaspoon of maple syrup, three tablespoons of olive oil and a pinch of salt in a food processor and blitz."

And Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall:

"My default sorrel sauce ... simply involves softening the leaf in a little butter and mixing it with a dash of cream. It's easy, delicious and versatile, and I use it a lot." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

All, like Carême turning something pretty simple into something at least a tiny bit special.

Then we come to more easily identifiable as 'haute cuisine' in that the concept is 'haute' but the actual dish is actually pretty everyday - but clever - see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meringue with strawberries and sorrel, which sounds way out there, but is actually a pavlova with strawberries mixed with shredded sorrel leaves on top. A bit of a cheat really, but who knows - maybe that tiny addition of sorrel makes a world of difference.

Not to be daunted however, and, in a way, following on from the strawberries Hugh also gives us Sweet sorrel tart. which is really a sweet custard tart filled with sorrel and raisins. Why not? After all the sharpness of the sorrel would I suppose equate to lemon juice. I'm not sure I'm up to this one though. Somehow it doesn't look right as a dessert.

Up a notch with Ottolenghi we get Fried butterbeans with feta, sorrel and sumac which, in some ways is only 'haute' in the sense that the ingredients are - well were - so unfamiliar. Not 'haute' though really is it? I imagine it could be everyday food from somewhere in the MIddle East.

But I shall end with two dishes from two of Australia's top chefs - Andrew McConnell with his Fish and sorrel pie which might sound simple, but really isn't and Colin Fassnidge's Tuna with sorrel juice - ditto. You can tell just by looking at them though can't you?

I suppose all that proves is that sorrel is just an ingredient which like so many others, started life as something ordinary, even despised and yet could be turned into something really special.

I should have mentioned salads - and sorrel is indeed a worthy addition to a salad, but in a sense it's 'just another leafy vegetable' in that context - and also with eggs, particularly omelettes, but again, in that context it's just another herb.

A special one though.

[The leaves] "sharpened the appetite, strengthened the heart, and gave so great a sharpness to a salad…that it should never be omitted” John Evelyn 1620 – 1706

I shall try to make an effort to use some of that red veined spinach in the garden.

YEARS GONE BY

September 26

2024 - Cool as a cucumber

2023 - L'apéro

2022 - Washing up

2021 - A word from - Simon Hopkinson

2020 - Missing

2019 - First recipe - part one - family cookbooks

2018 - Gulyás, goulash or pörkölt

2017 - Marshmallows

2016 - Cappuchino