Purée d’Oseille et de Tapioca à la Crème

Purée d’Oseille et de Tapioca à la Crème (sorrel and tapioca cream soup) teaches the order of enrichment. Tapioca builds the body, while the liaison, an egg-yolk-and-cream binding, gives the final velvet. Know this before you touch the pan: the soup must reach its boil before the liaison goes in, and it must never boil afterward.

The source sends its cook to Purée d’Oseille et de Vermicelle à la Crème (No. 642), replacing the vermicelli with exactly three ounces of tapioca. It assumed a saucier to guard the milk, a tammy and spare hands to rub the purée through, and, if the consommé route were chosen, white stock never off the fire. Here we take the source’s milk route and use one heavy saucepan, an immersion blender, and a fine-mesh sieve. The tammy and extra hands are brigade scaffolding; the twenty-five-minute poach, butter-cooked sorrel, and last-minute liaison are the dish.

The finished purée should be pale green and ivory, gently tart beneath the cream, with no visible pearls and no heaviness on the tongue. Watch the liaison. Temper it slowly, keep it below a simmer, and the soup arrives glossy and supple, made by one cook, one stove, one evening.