Sorrel Soup

It’s a childhood favorite of mine, sorrel soup. As a child, I remember picking sorrel wild from fields near our house. Or rather, to be honest: the adults picked while us kids, distracted, chased butterflies and blew petal-less dandelions. At the farmers market last Saturday, one word on a piece of paper among bundles of green at the Plant It Forward stall stopped me in my tracks: sorrel! Fresh from Plant It Forward’s urban farm right here in Houston, my childhood favorite sorrel soup is now simmering in my kitchen.

Sorrel has a distinct sour taste. The Dutch name for it, “zuring”, refers directly to it: zuur means sour. A classic combination is poached or baked salmon with sorrel sauce – a sauce of blanched and pureed sorrel and cream. Sorrel (along with parsley, chervil, and other green herbs) is also used in a dish popular in the region where I grew up, albeit on the other side of the border in Belgium: freshwater eel simmered in green herb sauce (“paling in het groen”). Oh yes it is good!

There are many different varieties of sorrel, too! The one used in the soup is field sorrel. In this picture is red-veined sorrel.
 
This here is a simple, straightforward recipe that brings a truly appetizing soup. Eat it hot or cold.
- 2 cups peeled and cut potatoes
- 1 liter good (chicken) stock
- 1 bunch sorrel (packs approx. 2 cups)
- ½ cup heavy cream
- salt/pepper to taste
 
Sorrel: strip the leaves off the stalks.
Simmer the potatoes with the sorrel stalks in the stock until the potatoes are completely soft.
Chop the sorrel leaves (coarse) and add to the potatoes and stalk stock.
Simmer briefly (5 minutes will do).
Puree with an immersion blender. Add the cream, salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

PS, the same recipe is how I make another favorite: chervil soup.