Sassy Sorrel

I confess that I had never heard of sorrel until I picked up a couple plants at my local nursery to add to my nascent vegetable garden. Sorrel has a lemony tartness that startled me and I started searching for interesting recipes. I currently have two favorites: Sorrel Soup and Sorrel Salsa, both from Rosso and Lukins New Basics Cookbook. I modified the Sorrel Soup to make it vegan (substitute olive oil for butter and use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock), but the salsa recipe is already vegan-friendly. The soup includes onions, garlic, sorrel leaves (of course), stock, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. It’s a purée and can be served hot or cold (I prefer hot). The salsa is great for a party appetizer (serve it with crackers) or to accompany fish (uh, sometimes I eat fish). It is simply made with sorrel leaves, chopped tomatoes, red onion, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

And for a literary reference, in Émile Zola’s Germinal: ‘Oh, the soup!’ said Maheude wearily, ‘that means picking sorrel and pulling some leeks . . .’ (’Tis incubating in the Book Club Possibility Bin.)
Recipe: Sorrel Soup