(serves 4): 50 g finely chopped beef jerky, the whites of 2 leeks, 1 onion, 1/2 tsp thyme, 500 g potatoes (waxy), 1 l meat stock; 100 g sorrel, butter, 1 cup sweet cream; butter, white bread cubes (croutons).
Soak the beef jerky in a heavy saucepan over low heat and sauté in the fat (add butter if necessary) finely chopped leek, onion and the crushed thyme. Add the hot stock and cook the peeled, diced and washed potatoes until soft. In the meantime, steam the coarsely chopped sorrel very briefly in a little hot butter and stir into the soup, which in the meantime has been puréed or passed through a sieve. Add enough cream to bring out the refreshing, sour taste. Serve with cubes of white bread toasted in butter.
The soup is also great eaten cold; it should then not be too creamy and be refined with a dash of white wine.
Sour Sorrel Sauce (with poached or roasted salmon)
For 4 people: Sauté 1 tablespoon chopped shallots in butter, deglaze with 1/4 l each fish stock, white wine, and vermouth (Noilly Prat is best) and reduce vigorously over high heat by a good half the volume. Add 1/4 l cream and boil down again. When the sauce has reached the right consistency, season with salt and pepper. Wash 100 g sorrel, cut into strips and stir into the slightly cooled sauce. If you want, you can still puree it now, but it is not necessary.
Sorrel brings about the sour freshness of the green sauce
.Anja Rappelt's strong handshake makes it clear that the petite thirty-year-old has had to work hard in her time. After the early death of her father, she and her mother Ingrid were left to their own devices and forced to continue the 1.5 hectare nursery that her grandfather had bought. With considerable success, in the meantime the nursery at the foot of the Goethe Tower and the shop in the quiet cross street to the Hainerweg have become a popular address. Not only with the neighbours but also beyond; Rappelt salads and herbs are also served down in Sachsenhausen at Metzger Meier or in the restaurants Holbeins, Weidemann or Edelweiß. And don't forget green sauce, every year the one made from the fresh herbs of early spring is the most popular, and who doesn't look forward to it? At the Rappelts you can get it in a package or already ready to go; light and spicy, with yoghurt and créme fraîche, instead of fiery mayonnaise.
The elegant, tart freshness of green sauce is predominantly due to the sorrel it contains. It appears even more spring-like than spinach, which it resembles nutritionally. "Ampfer" derives from the Old High German "ampharo", which meant sour. It belongs to the knotweed family and contains oxalic acid, as does rhubarb. In sorrel are various fruit acids, plenty of iron and lots of vitamin C. Sorrel thrives on its own in moist, not too nutrient-rich soil; it can be found in damp meadows, on fields and embankments, in ditches and along roadsides. However, if you do not want to collect it yourself, you can plant it without any problems. Once sown, sorrel comes back every year. Gardeners, however, sow it every year in order to be able to harvest more. Don't take too long with it, because while very young, tender leaves do well in wild herb salads, older leaves, however, can take on a bitter tone.
At home, sorrel almost never appears solo, but almost always in an ensemble and as an indispensable ingredient in green sauce. This may be all right, because there is really no wide range of recipes for sorrel. In addition to its use in salads, "Salmon in Sorrel Sauce" should not be lost sight of, but should be brought to the home table every now and then. For from the menus of our restaurants, the dish seems to have disappeared for some inexplicable reason. Although created in more recent times, it is considered a downright classic combination. The taste is worth it, the effort is minimal.
Sorrel soup, like the sauce, is of French origin. It is called there potage santé, "healthy soup". This it is, no doubt; but we are interested in its delicate taste and its invigorating effect. It is eaten warm, but it tastes almost as good cold. Perhaps summer will come sooner than expected after all.
Gardening and Vegetable Gardening
Ingrid and Anja Rappelt
Am Sandberg 78
60599 Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen
Phone: 069-684514
Fax: 682719
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 7.30am to 12.30pm & 3pm to 6.30pm, Sat 7.30am to 1pm. Closed on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons
from Waldemar Thomas