Sorrel Soup or Green Borscht with vegetable purée – a delight for foragers
If you love foraging then the Sorrel Soup or green Borscht is just ideal for you. Imagine the anticipation while setting off and then the excitement of picking your dinner from the wild! Splendid! When you take a good look around you will see that sorrel grows literally everywhere. For the soup pick only the leaves that grow near the ground. The tall stem and the leaves growing on it might be a bit tough and stringy.
This particular recipe serves 4 so you will need 4-5 generous handfuls of sorrel leaves.
There are lots of recipes for Sorrel Soup or Green Borscht to compare. This time I came up with an elegant version of the soup so that you can serve it at a dinner party and impress your guests.
The soup – procedure step 1
Bring a pan of 1,5 litre (3 pints) of water to the boil and add the ingredients in the following order:
- Sweet 4 medium sized potatoes, chopped, 2 sliced carrots, 1 sliced parsnip, 1 tablespoon of olive oil,
- Pungent ¼ medium sized celeriac, roughly chopped, 1 small leek, sliced, a pinch of black pepper,
- Salty 1 tablespoon of sea salt,
The vegetable purée – procedure
Boil the vegetables until soft. Drain them collecting the liquid in a separate, smaller pot. Put them back into the original pot, add a pinch of basil, turmeric and a splash of olive oil and mash the vegetables well. If the purée needs a bit of seasoning, add some freshly ground black pepper and salt or any other spices of your choice. (Alternatively, you may mash the vegetables at the end of the cooking process when the sorrel leaves are in the soup. Then, there will be less of the leaves in the soup.)
The soup – procedure step 2
To continue with the soup add the folowing:
- Sour sorrel leaves, washed and roughly chopped or whole if you prefer, a splash of lemon juice,
- Bitter a pinch of thyme,
- Sweet 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
Bring the soup to the boil and turn the heat off. Sorrel does not need any cooking so you can stop immediately after the leaves wilt and change colour.
Put a little bit of the purée into a small mould and turn it upside down onto the serving plate. Then pour in some soup and add a hard boiled egg (optional).
To serve
Sorrel Soup or Green Borscht with vegetable purée is perfect on its own or have it with pumpkin pancakes, gourgeres.
