Thursday: Jackson Pollock soup

Chilled sorrel and spinach soup (with a little drizzled yogurt).

For this recipe, the greens are simmered together for about five minutes:


















The sorrel turned a pretty olive-green color after a few minutes in the pot.

When the greens are soft, they are pureed.  Finally, the soup is reheated and thickened with a little cornstarch, and flavored with some nutmeg, lemon juice and a little zest.  As you can see above, we "decoratively" drizzled in a bit of yogurt to serve.

Tuesday: Re-pesto

Sorrel-garlic chive pesto.

We've been making a lot of pestos, including one with sorrel, but this was another nice variation: we threw in garlic chives, instead of garlic or ramps.  As part of our pesto experimentation, we've just been substituting whatever allium we happened to have around the house for the standard garlic cloves.  So far they've all passed muster.

Wednesday: Sorrel-ramp pesto

Sorrel-ramp pesto.

You might be unaware, faithful reader, that sorrel is a leafy green had you only encountered it on our blog last year. Thankfully our improved camera can do justice to the beautiful, bright parrot green color of this early spring veg.

Although we used to think that pesto was synonymous with basil, we've come to realize that any leafy green with a strong flavor can serve as the base of this sauce. Here, we take advantage of the bright, tart flavor of sorrel. Since basil pesto typically includes a few cloves of garlic, we instead threw in a handful of ramps, which added another complex but not overpowering flavor. A quarter cup or so of walnuts and a half cup or so of grated Parmesan were the final ingredients. Delicious.

P.S. Speaking of pesto, if you haven't seen this recent article by Harold McGee on the great cilantro debate, you might want to check it out. Apparently it was cilantro, not basil, that served as the base of "traditional" Mediterranean pesto!

Wednesday fish with sorrel

Catfish (sorry, Oscar) with sorrel sauce and roasted purple potatoes with thyme.

Sorrel naturally has a sour flavor and compliments fish well, like lemon. When cooked with a minimal amount of water it melts into a sauce.