This week’s recipe was Sauerampfersüpple (Sorrel or Dock soup) from the Baden-Württemberg section of the book. Sorrel (Sauerampfer) is a sour plant that has both wild and cultivated varieties. The most common kind of sorrel is all green, while the plant I picked up at our local garden center, though called only “Sauerampfer” appears to me to be Curly Dock, which has ruffled leaves with red veining.
My sorrel plant, before harvest
In the three weeks since I bought the sorrel, it’s doubled in size, which is very lucky, cause I had to use pretty much all the leaves for this dish. The smallest leaves are still there, so I expect it to rebound well in the next month or so.
I was worrying a little as a briefly cooked the sorrel in butter, because it turned a murky brown color. I’m not sure if I cooked it too long, but I am sure this was at least partly caused by the red in the leaf. The photo in the cookbook shows a pistachio green soup, and that’s not what I got, but I assume if you use completely green sorrel, your soup will have that nice light green color.
Sorrel soup
This was party weekend. We hit three parties over the last two days, so there wasn’t a lot of time to fit this dish in. I ended up bringing it over to the neighbors party. Everyone said they enjoyed it, but there was plenty left over (I made the 4 servings as the recipe stated, and there were 13 people). Rainer found it bitter. I thought it was okay, but nothing special. The fresh sorrel on top did taste bitter, but I didn’t find it unpleasant. But I wouldn’t make this again. My final judgement: if you’ve got a garden full of sorrel and are looking to save money, this is a recipe you should try. Everyone else, I wouldn’t really bother with it.
Other participants:
- Stephanie at A Greenville Life
Next challenge!
- July 13, Beeren-Kaltschale (Cold berry bowl)
- July 20, Grie Soß (Frankfurter green sauce)
- July 27, Buttermilchplinsen (Buttermilk pancakes)
- August 3, Dicke Milch (Thick Milk) – I’m a little worried about this one, but I guess it’s okay to eat…?
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i wonder why it tasted bitter. i’ve only eaten sauerampfersuppe on rare occassions becaues my great-grandmother was the only one in our family who made this. but it always tasted slightly sour. have you tried one of the sorrel leaves before you cooked them? did they still taste sour?
They were a little sour with a slight bitter aftertaste. Maybe it was the variety, or that I used the big leaves too. Hmmm…
Hmm, we never found this green and soup didn’t sound good in such humid weather. I’m very curious about it though.
I’m super excited for green sauce!!! We’ve made that a few times and I love it! (Damon just asked the lady at the farmer’s market to give him the ingredients for green sauce…so we don’t even know what it was!)
CN Heidelbergs last blog post..Tidbits for the weekend
My sorrel soup didn’t turn out bitter at all – so maybe it was the variety you used (did you “stem” the leaves? Sometimes you have to take the “bone” out of big leaves to take away more of the bitterness).
My leaves were very small and tender – sorry that I didn’t get a picture of them!
Stephanies last blog post..Sauerampfersüpple (Sorrel soup)
@CN Heidelberg: I’ve never had green sauce, but everyone raves about it, so I’m excited to try it!
@stephanie: I didn’t “stem” the bigger leaves. All I did was cut off the stems. Maybe that made some difference. But I also think it was the variety. I used the smallest leaves for the raw sliced stuff on top, since I’d read online that the bigger leaves could be bitter, and they were a little bitter as well. It wasn’t horrible though, okay, Rainer complained about the bitterness, but I didn’t find it unpleasant. Maybe if I see the all green variety in a store sometime, I’ll try this recipe again just to see if that was the problem.
Oh, I forgot to comment on the Dickmilch! I bought that stuff at the store a while back and made a recipe with it which turned out really great! I’ve been meaning to blog about it but I made it right before some crazy life events and never got around to it. So I bet it will be good
CN Heidelbergs last blog post..Tidbits for the weekend
Very interesting about the bitter-ish taste. I imagine you’d want to remove all the the thicker veins — I do that with all greens. ALSO, the picture of your plant looks a bit like chard to me –I just looked it up on Wikipedia to check on nomenclature, but Chard’s scientific name is Beta vulgaris, while Sorrel or Dock is Rumex acetosa — and they are not closely related to each other (different plant families)… Greens are chock full healthy, and I’m always looking for new ways to serve them! I found a good reference describing and comparing a number of different greens, incl chard, which was described as “slightly bitter”: http://www.foodreference.com/html/art-greens.html
Anyway, one way to make it a less bitter soup would be not only to remove the veins, but also to mix in some milder greens, like spinach…
PS: THanks for putting Gruene Sosse on the list!!!
I’ve introduced my family and even a few of my Alaskan friends to Potatoes with Gruene Sosse and salmon, and have converted a few sceptics already…
.-= naturelady´s last blog ..Gardening w/ youngsta =-.
@naturelady: I think it’s the veins, but mixing it in with spinach, or arugula, would definitely help too.
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