Sorrel Pesto - a.k.a Sour Duck Sauce

When I was little, I was a pretty good little forager. My folks fed me, I just liked to find things to eat in the ditch, on the lawn, in the woods or anywhere other than the conventional.

I ate, what we called, tea berries, fiddleheads (I am sure I likely ate some other ferns as well), blueberries from wherever I could find them, blackberries and wild raspberries, with scratches and scars to prove it and carefully guarded patches of wild strawberries spared the blades of the lawnmower. One of my greatest discoveries was sour ducks. I have no idea who introduced me to them or what possesses a fairly functional eight year old to eat sour weeds from the lawn but I would walk, head down, looking for the tell tale wispy red heads of the plant, all summer long. 

I tried to figure out what these things were, I was sure that it wasn’t really called sour duck. I asked lots of people, none seemed to have a clue what I was talking about and would raise an eyebrow. I, while by no means searching relentlessly, never gave up, my curiosity was still there.

Imagine my excitement and joy to be alive, when I finally realized what it was. It is actually an edible plant, in small quantities. Large quantities are apparently poisonous. A plant used, more and more, in food created by master chefs, not just hedgerow foragers. It is sorrel. 

While I am sure that what I ate, and what grows in my lawn, is a different variety to what grows, somewhat wildly and accidentally, in my garden, there is no mistaking the sour grassy taste of what is properly called sour dock, not sour duck.

While I like to make a chiffonade and add it to a salad, I understand that the raw, unadulterated flavour may not be to everyone’s taste. My girls seem to enjoy eating it straight out of the garden. Poppy put a few leaves on her lobster sandwich the other day and I realized that, mixed into some mayonnaise, it would be delicious with cold fish or seafood.

Sorrel has become popular as a cream sauce or butter flavour, especially in Europe, which is delicious when executed properly. In our CSA this past winter, we had bunches of the stuff and decided a pesto would be a great way to diversify its uses.

If you don’t have sorrel in your herb garden yet, I want to suggest you get a little pot and pop it in there. I did this last year and had a pretty unsuccessful crop, the bugs ate far more than we did. I didn’t expect it to survive the winter but I now have a big patch of limey green spinach like leaves which the bigs don’t even seem to be able to keep up with. 

I have used this to stuff salmon or spread it on top as a crust. It makes a delish primavera style pasta too. If you find the taste too sour, add an equal amount of fresh parsley and adjust the seasoning.

Sorrel Pesto

Large handful sorrel leaves (plus large handful of parsley if you are using)

1/2 cup slivered almonds (substitute pine nuts if you want to)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic 

Tear or chop sorrel leaves. In the bowl of your food processor, purée all the ingredients until smooth. 

Place in clean container and refrigerate until ready to use.

This is what I did with the latest batch.