a little help here?

[lolaraincoat]

So we have a whole lot of sorrel in the garden right now. What should I do with it? Put it in a mouth-puckering salad? Cook it? How?

Comments

[amelia_eve]

A colleague from the Caribbean brought me a fabulous drink made from sorrel, but now that I Google a bit for recipes, I see that it is made from the flowers rather than the leaves. But if you do end up with enough flowers to make something like this, it's delicious, very tart and refreshing and a beautiful ruby color.

[lolaraincoat]

Hmmm. You know, I'm not sure that's the same plant - the recipe seems to refer to flowers that grow on trees? What we have here looks a bit like a lettuce, and I don't think it flowers at all. But it's still called sorrel.

[amelia_eve]

I know nothing about it except that I dated a boy in college whose father was named Sorrel. And I loved that drink!

[ellen_fremedon]

I've been eating it in mixed green salads, with radishes and/or cucumbers and/or goat cheese. (I wouldn't put too much of it in at once; it's supposed to be a laxative in large quantities.)

I've also put some into a tzatziki to eat with lamb burgers, and that was fantastic.

Joy of Cooking also recommends a chiffonade of sorrel in soups. I haven't tried that yet, but I bet it would be excellent in a ministrini, or as a garnish to a potato soup or a green pea soup.

[lolaraincoat]

Oooh! Oooh! I was going to make a turkey meatloaf tomorrow anyway! I could leave out the dried-tomato topping and do a kind of Greek-yoghurt-and-sorrel sauce! Mmm!

Thank you!

[amelia_eve]

I have been on a major meatloaf kick (I always use half turkey and half turkey sausage, with oatmeal for binder). I made a bunch of freezeable food for Leit while I was there, and then came home and made two more loaves for me. It's so fulfilling, somehow.

Best accompaniment of this series was whole wheat couscous with sauteed mushrooms and spinach.

[sanj]

Just a little bit in salads and the whole thing tastes fresh and citrus-y. Apparently it's also good with lamb, if you eat lamb.

[lolaraincoat]

Oh I eat everything, and in quantity.

However tomorrow night's guest is pickier, so no lamb for him. Turkey should be okay, though. Hmmmm ...

[executrix]

I never could stand the stuff myself, but schav is sorrel soup--I think you just puree it with chicken broth and eggs and heat gently. Sorrel sauce is traditional with shad, but I bet you don't have any shad either.

The drink is something else entirely--it's flor de jamaica, or hibiscus, the stuff you make Red Zinger out of.

[lolaraincoat]

Oh, jamaica ... aka hibiscus, aka Rose of Sharon. I know that! Just hadn't ever heard it called sorrel before. We have some of that in the front year that a friend gave me. Presumably by midsummer I could drink "sorrel" punch while eating sorrel salad.

It is a never-ending source of entertainment to me how much of the decorative bits of the garden are edible, and how pretty some of the edible bits of the garden are.

[dremiel]

Here's a Gordon Ramsay recipe that I made last year when I got a bundle of sorrel in my farm box and wanted something other than typical sorrel soup. I made it with veggie stock and left off the caviar garnish. It was lovely