Looks like Sludge taken from Shrek's Swamp

French-style Sorrel Soup: but tastes good enough to feed a princess.


After eating some delicious goat cheese and sorrel stuffed pasta at new San Francisco restaurant, Range, last week, conversation turned to the less common leafy green vegetable, sorrel. My French friends were telling me how much they missed it. When I saw some at the Farmers market on Saturday, I decided to have a go at making this soup using locally sourced ingredients. Be warned - despite its green colour, this soup is not healthy. Despite its ugly appearance, however, it is 100% delicious.

Ingredients:
2 bunches of 4 Sisters Farm sorrel, finely chopped.
4 tbsp Strauss butter
1 tsp flour (not local)
1 cup fatted calf duck demi glace + cup of water
(I used the demi glace because, it was in the fridge needing to be used. 2 cups of good chicken or vegetable stock would work just as well)
3/4 cup Cow Girl Creamery creme fraiche.
2 Marin Sun Farms Egg Yolks
salt and pepper to taste (not local)

Method:
Melt butter in a heavy pan over medium heat.
Add sorrel and wilt until sludgy.
Stir in flour.
Heat stock/water mixture separately and then add to sorrel.
Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Liquidise or blend with a hand blender.
In a bowl, whisk together the cream and egg yolks.
Slowly add, a quarter of a cupful of the sorrel mixture to the cream and blend carefully, so as not to curdle the mixture.
Repeat a few times before adding the cream mixture the hot soup.
Heat carefully until piping hot, without bringing to a boil. Serve immediately.




PS - My locavore efforts yesterday failed spectacularly. I grabbed a quick salad and muffin lunch at Foodles. It was too busy to start asking questions about the source of their food with the lovely cashier who doesn't speak the best English. In the evening I had a pre-arranged meeting at Frascati in San Francisco. I asked them how much of the menu was local and they said, "oh lots". The recommended seasonal heirloom tomato salad was watery and bland. The waitress told me the duck was local. Bullshit! When I researched it later, I found this couldn't be further from the truth. Maple Leaf Farms is the US's largest duck farm, in Illinois, and they supply chains like Walmart, Costco and Safeway.No wonder the meal was lacklustre!

posted in Food and Recipe and Eat Local and Review

Looks like Sludge taken from Shrek's Swamp