I was wittering on Twitter the other day about how right Proust was about his madeleines and how the taste, scent or sight of food can trigger memory. Being a somewhat greedy person, there are rather more of these sensory triggers in my life than just a simple cake. One of them is sorrel. A spinach shaped green leaf, it’s more commonly used in the UK as an herb to add a little bite to a fish dish, but in Hungary it’s treated like a vegetable and served in quantity. If you’ve not tasted sorrel before, it’s a piquant, acidic leaf with a citrus flavour that leaves your mouth slightly dry and a little puckered when eaten raw. It’s the oxalic acid within that creates this mouth drying action – it’s the same with raw rhubarb. It’s a vibrant green before cooking, but does turn a rather disappointing muddy green colour when heated. Yet the flavour remains.
My father adored sorrel. It was a taste of his childhood for him, as something my grandmother and the family cook foraged for during the difficult war years. Born in 1936 into a comfortable upper middle class family with a defunct baronetcy or two, a mayoral grandfather and a lawyer father, Papi’s very early years were blessed. He was very much the baby of the family, the accidental afterthought with three elder siblings who spoilt him rotten. Known as thunder and lightning or mennydörgés és villámlás, he was a boisterous little boy, infamous in the family for needing to be fed by two people taking it in turns to shovel food into his ever open mouth. He spent much of his babyhood in the kitchens, getting underfoot and learning first hand from kitchen staff and his mother how to cook. This was a very useful skill later in life when he married a woman who could burn water.
Sorrel can go a little bit wild in a garden setting. It’s pretty indestructible and is commonly foraged in grasslands all year round. This makes it a very useful plant during the spring hungry gap, or at times in life when food is not so easily come by. This was the case for Papi as a young boy. Being on the losing side post World War II and the clamp down on the decadent bourgeoisie by the Soviets, who arrived in 1944 and forgot to leave until 1989, meant difficult times for my parental family. My aunt’s future husband was one of the 600,000 Hungarians deported to forced labour camps in the Soviet Union for several years. My father’s brother served in the Hungarian army and was later imprisoned for anti-Soviet plotting. Food became scarce, and foraging for sorrel became an easy way to add some greens and vital vitamins and flavour to the more usual diet of bread and dripping that my father was growing up on. Malnourishment was a very real issue. In fact, after he made it to Britain in early 1957 as a young man of 20, he grew an additional 6 inches in height thanks to finally being able to eat a decent diet.
I mentioned that in the UK sorrel tends to be more of a herby garnish than a main ingredient. The Hungarian recipes I have inherited call for great handfuls of the stuff – it’s very similar to spinach in its ability to shrink vastly the minute heat is applied. I have found it here and there in 30g packs from posh greengrocers but I rarely find it in abundance so have started growing it instead. Growing up in 70s Liverpool, there was a small coterie of Hungarian expats based here and one, Anikó, had an allotment where she grew sorrel. During spring and into summer she would turn up every couple of weeks with a carrier bag or two of sorrel for my father. He was always pleased to see her and would immediately start making this soup. My sisters were less keen but I loved it. So for me, making sorrel soup or sóskaleves catapults me back to our glorious 1970s kitchen in Cressington, and my Papi frying potato croutons in lard. Of course.
Sóskaleves (pronounced show-shka lev-esh)
Chop an onion finely. Add a tbsp of lard (ideally dripping) or you can use butter to a medium saucepan and leave to melt slowly over a low heat. Add the onions, stir well to coat in the fat and leave to very slowly cook. Do not rush this. The onions need to be translucent, soft and almost sweet, and only gentle slow cooking will create this.
Whilst the onions are melting into a savoury puddle, you can start on the potato croutons. Peel a large baking potato and cut into small dice. Gently heat (more) lard in a large frying pan and add the raw potato. Place on a low heat and occasionally stir to prevent sticking and too much browning. The potatoes should be golden and cooked through. Again, you don’t want to rush this.
Take 4 large handfuls of sorrel (I know, super accurate measurements…but about 150g?), and finely chop, stalks and all. Keep a few back for garnish and toss rest into the now softened onions. Stir well and add a pint of chicken stock. Bring to a gentle simmer for 10 minutes. Take off the heat. At this point you can whizz the soup with a hand blender if you like a smoother soup. I don’t usually bother but it’s a personal preference. Mix an egg yolk with 125ml of sour cream. Add a ladle of the hot soup to the creamy egg mixture to stabilise it before pouring it all back into the rest of the soup. Put back on a gentle heat and keep stirring until it begins to thicken and coat the back of your spoon (think thin custard). Check seasoning. You may wish to add a little lemon juice to sharpen the flavour. Serve sprinkled with the crispy potato croutons and the reserved fresh sorrel. (Please note, you can use butter instead of lard and veg stock instead of chicken, but I find veg oil doesn’t give the unctuous flavour needed to counteract the acidic sorrel.)
Finom - the food of Hungary 
What a wonderful recipe. Can’t wait until my leaves are big enough to harvest
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