Sorrel soup

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) is an early-spring easy-to-grow perennial which does well even in heavy clay soil like many of us have in the Greater Cincinnati area. Its flavor is tangy, almost lemony. The smaller, tender leaves can be used in mixed-greens salads and larger leaves can be made into sorrel soup, a traditional spring tonic. This is what sorrel looks like in the garden.

Vicky from Thistlehair Farms had some good-looking sorrel on Saturday at Findlay, big half-pound bags for $2.75 each. A big pot of sorrel soup seemed like a great idea on a blustery spring day, so I bought a couple of bags.

Sorrel is one of the easier greens to clean. After washing it to remove any grit (sorrel always seems to have lots of grit, so don't skip this step), instead of having to trim off the vein completely you can just fold the leaf in half lengthwise (front to front), grasp the vein at the base, and pull to remove any woody strings. With these removed, sorrel will fall apart as it cooks, melting into the stock to provide a thick velvety green base that looks as if it's been pureed. (Sorrel is sometimes called 'green sauce' because of this unusual characteristic.)

Here's my cleaned sorrel, chopped. It's a beautiful bright green, which unfortunately doesn't survive cooking. Even a short cooking time turns it a not-so-pretty muddy dark green, which doesn't exactly sing to me of spring. Fortunately, the spring-fresh tangy taste does survive the cooking.

This recipe is an adaptation from one in Bert Greene's Greene on Greens book, one of my all-time favorite vegetable cookbooks. The addition of potatoes would seem to make this a not-truly-seasonal soup, but nearly every sorrel soup recipe I've found does contain potatoes which tends to suggest the combination is traditional. Perhaps if you have a good root cellar, in April you're still pulling out potatoes that are in good enough shape to cut off the bad parts and chop the rest for soup?

SORREL SOUP
Serves 4

4 strips bacon, diced
3 leeks, cleaned and chopped fine
1 onion, chopped fine
3 cups chicken stock
1 pound boiling potatoes, peeled and diced fine
1 pound sorrel, cleaned and roughly chopped
salt & pepper to taste
sour cream to taste

In a heavy pot (don't use cast iron, as the acidity of the sorrel will react with the iron and you'll end up with metallic-tasting soup), saute bacon until crisp. Add leeks and onions and saute over medium heat, scraping up brown bits from bottom of pan, 10 minutes. Add chicken stock and potatoes and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer 15 minutes. Add sorrel and continue to simmer another 15 - 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until potatoes are tender and sorrel has dissolved into the broth. Correct seasonings, ladle into bowls and top with a dollop of sour cream to serve. My son ate nearly three bowls, so I have to declare this one a winner.

Ramps in season!

Ramps (Allium Tricoccum), also called ramson, wild leeks, and in the UK wild garlic, are in season now. They won't be in season long, and when they're gone, they're gone until next year. So when I saw some at the Findlay Market Madison's I snapped them up.

Here's what ramps look like growing. They grow in damp woodlands wild all over the midwest and can be foraged from April through June, depending on how far north you are. Here in SW OH the ramps season is just starting and will last about six weeks. The taste is somewhere between an onion and strong garlic, and they can be used in any recipe calling for garlic.

This is a ramp, not yet cleaned.










I trim the roots, then stick them into a sink full of water and swish them around to get them clean. Like leeks, they tend to collect dirt in their layers, and if you don't clean them thoroughly your finished dish will be gritty.

Here's my bunch all nice and clean:

I chopped them, bulbs and leaves and all, and they're ready to go into my recipe.

I would have loved to pair these ramps with that other early-spring foragers' delight, morel mushrooms, but they were $40 a pound this weekend at Madison's. I think I'll wait for my morel foraging expedition in a couple of weeks to try that combo. This time I just used criminis.

PASTA SALAD WITH CHICKEN, BACON, MUSHROOMS AND RAMPS
Serves 4

16 oz Rotini
1 t olive oil
2 slices of bacon, diced
1 bunch ramps, chopped roughly
1 garlic clove, minced
1 lb mushrooms, quartered
1/4 c cream
2 chicken breasts, cooked and diced
2 T grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
salt & pepper to taste

Prepare pasta al dente according to package instructions and drain. In the meantime in a large saute pan, saute bacon until crisp. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon, add to drained pasta, toss to coat, and set aside.

In remaining bacon grease, saute ramps, garlic, and mushrooms until mushrooms are cooked through. Add cream and diced chicken; simmer on lowest heat to reduce, about 15 minutes.
Add veggies and parmesan to pasta and toss to coat, correct seasonings, and chill thoroughly before serving. Even better the next day. Thumbs up here at our house.