I haven"t but after reading the article below, I think I will!In spring and early summer at River Cottage, we often gather the little shield-shaped leaves of wild sorrel to add whole to salads - you'll find them in almost any permanent pastures where chemical fertilisers and weedkillers are never used - but we also grow lots in the garden. The cultivated leaves are larger and softer, and although the young ones also go in our salads, we mainly cook with the mature leaves. (If you want a continuous supply of zesty leaves for summer salads, the buckler leaf variety, with its rounded leaves, is the best to grow.)

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Toss these young and little leaves in salads with a variety of lettuces (though not, perhaps, bitter or hot leaves such as chicory or rocket - the flavours fight). Dress simply with olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. There's no need for lemon or vinegar; sorrel is tangy enough. Try adding a few shredded leaves to cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, or shred some into fromage frais or soft goat's cheese and spread on toast. For a delicious canapé, spread the leaves with the thinnest smear of cream cheese and a sliver of smoked salmon or trout, and roll up.

When you're cooking the larger, mature leaves, strip out and discard the stalks, just as you would with spinach, before cooking. Avoid aluminium or cast-iron pans, though, because the oxalic acid in the leaves reacts with the metal and affects the flavour.

Given sorrel's sprightly, tangy flavour, it's surprising that with the vaguest suggestion of heat the leaves turn a rather militaristic shade of olive - or, less politely, cowpat green. Just like spinach, it shrinks dramatically when cooked, so always pick more than you think you're going to need. Sorrel certainly forms the laziest and most accommodating of purées - no mechanical assistance required: simply shred it, throw it into warm butter and in a matter of seconds it will transform itself into the silkiest of sauces.

Sorrel's a natural companion to eggs - a simple sorrel soup, say, tastes and looks wonderful with a poached egg floating in it; or spoon some sorrel sauce (see recipe overleaf) over thick sourdough toast and top with a poached egg for a rather special supper dish. Experiment and use it to perk up your fail-safe eggy dishes - toss a few leaves into an omelette with some cubes of cooked potato, for example, or add a handful to an onion tart.

Sorrel's other match made in heaven is oily fish - including salmon, sea trout, sea bass and, most joyously and thriftily of all, our dearly beloved mackerel.

Mackerel with sorrel sauce

This delicious dish is really the work of minutes. Serves two.

200g sorrel

4 mackerel fillets

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp olive oil

50g unsalted butter

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp double cream

Wash the sorrel well, remove and discard the stalks and chop the leaves coarsely.

Season the mackerel fillets with a little salt and pepper. Put a heavy-bottomed frying pan over a medium heat and add a thin film of olive oil. When the oil is fairly hot, lay the fillets skin side down in the pan. When the flesh is almost completely white, flip over for just a minute to finish cooking - the whole process shouldn't take more than five minutes. Transfer to a warm plate while you make the sauce.

Put the butter into the same pan in which you cooked the fish and melt over a medium heat. When the butter is frothing, throw in the sorrel, which will quickly wilt and turn a dull greeny-brown. Give it a swift stir, remove the pan from the heat, let it cool for 30 seconds, then beat in the egg yolk, which will thicken the sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and enrich the sauce by stirring in the double cream. Serve the mackerel with the warm sorrel sauce and some waxy new potatoes.

Hot new potato and sorrel salad

A dish on its own, with the best new potatoes of early summer, or just a lovely way of dressing spuds, perhaps to serve with fish. Serves four as a starter.

500g Jersey Royals or other new potatoes

2-3 handfuls of sorrel

50g unsalted butter

1 tbsp olive oil

Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Scrub the potatoes and boil them in well-salted water until just tender - Jersey Royals, in particular, lose much of their charm if they're over-boiled, so be vigilant and taste a small potato after just seven minutes or so; eight to 10 minutes is often long enough cooking time.

While the potatoes are cooking, strip the central veins out of the sorrel leaves. Wash well and shred into ribbons about 1cm wide.

As soon as the potatoes are done, drain them, cut them in half and put them in a bowl with the butter and a drizzle of oil. Add the shredded sorrel and toss well. Leave for a minute so the heat of the potatoes wilts the sorrel, then toss again. Rest for another minute, then season with salt and pepper, and serve at once.

Sorrel pesto

This sauce works great with gnocchi or pasta, or with simply grilled or roasted fish or chicken.

2 tbsp pine nuts

1 small clove garlic, peeled and crushed

1-2 handfuls young sorrel leaves (about 45g in weight)

1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, stalks removed

Sea salt

6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

30g hard goat's cheese, grated

In a small frying pan over a medium heat, lightly toast the pine nuts until they're just beginning to turn golden, then tip out into a food processor. Add the garlic, sorrel, parsley and a pinch of salt to the pine nuts, then pulse a few times until roughly chopped and combined. Slowly pour in the olive oil, pulsing as you go, until the pesto is the consistency you like.

Spoon the pesto mixture into a bowl and stir in the goat's cheese. The pesto will keep, sealed in a jar with a slick of olive oil over the top, for about a week

Here's a link I found concerning the health benefits/risks. It might have a bad effect on your knees, but on the other hand, it may well be worth trying as it seems to be great in many ways.

Here is a link that might be useful: health benefits/risks

When I saw the word 'sorrel,' I immediately thought of schav, a sorrel soup that, like borscht, is served cold. I've never cared for the sour taste, but perhaps you'd like to try it. An interesting article that has a few recipes using sorrel is at the link below. (If nothing else, note that it should not be cooked in an aluminum pot!) Enjoy!

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Article about sorrel/schav

There is a dish from the Restaurant Troisgros that is featured in Bourdain's CNN series, in the episode on Lyon (my favorite French city for food) -- it is basically like a lightly cooked salmon with a sorrel cream. BTW, I found the episode fascinating. I haven't tried the recipe, which I found on MS' site.

Here is a link that might be useful: MS version of salmon with sorel

It's eaten a lot here as a sauce for fish. Do you think you'll try it?

gooster, that was a fascinating episode. !
I met Daniel and his wife last spring. Lovely, friendly and full of life just as i expected. (did not know about his childhood).

I do grow sorrel. And many other greens and things in small amounts.
Some intended, some hitchhikers. Some i should not like but accept...(the horseradish)
Sorrel?...i think in small quantities it can be an anti-inflamatory and healthy. (I have inherited joint issues).
I use sorrel as more of a finishing garnish, a few young leaves in a base for fish or chicken. A last minute addition to a sauce. As in the classic made in Bourdain's recent episode. Salmon with sorrel sauce.

Something i'm not sure of, in larger quantities, like a pesto, i avoid. Just try to balance out the meal with a salad and dressing that includes a contrasting herb.

Mustard, fresh ginger, turmeric, lots of lemon and citrus.

Sorrel sauce with a bit of butter and cream is swoon-worthy with any fish - not just salmon, but also fresh halibut and swordfish.

My sorrel is now ready to harvest (and I have a fair amount of it), but now I am wondering if it will aggravate arthritis, which I now have under control.

I was thinking of trying to preserve it, or maybe make a salad dressing with it, which I believe would preserve it.

This web site seems to have some good suggestions as to what to do with it, in addition to Islay's suggestions, which I am also considering.

For Shambo:

I use sorrel in sandwiches partly as a substitute for lettuce. It has a somewhat tart, lemony flavor and adds a bit of tang if you are not using pickles. Pickles would overpower the subtle flavor of sorrel. It combines well with lettuce, however. It think it would fit in very well in a Greek salad or tabbouleh - anything where a mild lemon flavor would be good. I eat a lot of it just by itself - it is growing quite profusely now, and I believe it is a northern plant.

Lars, it sounds delicious. When I finally get around to herb shopping, I'll get a baby plant. Thanks for answering my question.

I grew mine from seed, and the seeds are easy to sprout, since they normally grow in cool climates - plus they are a lot cheaper than baby plants, and they grow quickly, once germinated.

I eat it as a weed out of the garden every year. More of a seasoning than main ingredient. I doubt I will be in danger of eating enough to be unhealthy, but then I just forage wild sorrel, not the big leaved garden stuff, so I dunno about that. I haven't had a problem with other vegetables high in oxalic acid. It's really a matter of degrees, but everyone is different so there's no harm in trying it out and seeing how you react. SO avoids kidney beans and cauliflower because of their high purine content (only relative to other vegetables, because they really aren't that high) but then routinely eats meats and fishes with higher levels. So it's a matter of degree of what else you eat, etc.