Grüne Soße
Photo: Manfred&Barbara Aulbach · CC BY-SA 3.0

History

Grüne Soße belongs to Frankfurt the way pesto belongs to Genoa. The canonical seven herbs are borage, sorrel, garden cress, chervil, chives, parsley and salad burnet, most of them grown in the Oberrad district, which styles itself the city's herb garden. Legend ties the sauce to Goethe's mother, and the city now stages a week-long Grüne Soße Festival each May where restaurant versions compete on the Roßmarkt. Season traditionally opens around Maundy Thursday, when the first bundled herb packets appear at the markets.

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Common allergens: Egg, Milk

Make it at home

Yield Serves 4Hands-on 30 minTotal 1 hrDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 200g mixed fresh herbs: borage, sorrel, cress, chervil, chives, parsley, salad burnet in roughly equal parts
  • 300g sour cream
  • 200g plain yoghurt or schmand
  • 1 tablespoon mustard
  • 1 tablespoon neutral oil
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 8 eggs
  • 800g waxy potatoes
  • Salt, black pepper, a pinch of sugar

Method

  1. Wash the herbs, strip any tough stalks, and chop them very finely by hand or pulse briefly in a food processor without turning them to paste.
  2. Stir the herbs through the sour cream and yoghurt with the mustard, oil and lemon juice. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar.
  3. Rest the sauce in the fridge for at least 30 minutes so the herbs perfume the cream.
  4. Boil the eggs for 9 minutes and the potatoes until tender. Halve the eggs.
  5. Serve the cold sauce generously over the warm halved eggs with the potatoes alongside.

Tip from the editors. Never blend the herbs smooth; the sauce should be speckled and rough. Missing burnet or borage is forgivable, dried herbs are not.

Where to eat grüne soße

Grüne Soße in Frankfurt

Apfelwein Wagner ★ 4.6

€€ GermanSachsenhausen

Apfelwein Wagner proves Frankfurt tradition is a budget cuisine: Handkäs at €5.10 and Rippchen with kraut under €15 on Schweizer Strasse every day.

TryHandkäs mit Musik at €5.10, Grüne Soße at €14.50

TipOrder Handkäs and a Schoppen for the cheapest authentic Frankfurt dinner going; bread comes with it, and nobody hurries you out.

Directions

Gasthaus Zur Sonne ★ 4.4

€€ GermanBornheim

Gasthaus Zur Sonne has stood at the top of Frankfurt's Berger Straße for over 250 years, a half-timbered Bornheim tavern with a big chestnut garden.

OrderFrankfurter Schnitzel with the seven-herb Grie Soß, then Apfelstrudel

TipThe courtyard behind the half-timbered house is Bornheim's best summer room; the heated barn takes over in winter.

Directions

Edel's Hausmannskost (Kleinmarkthalle) ★ 4.4

€ GermanInnenstadt

Edel's stand in the Kleinmarkthalle is where Frankfurt office workers eat Grüne Soße standing up, hidden in the sausage queue's shadow at midday.

OrderGrüne Soße with halved eggs and potatoes, market-stand style

Why locals goTourists queue for the sausage stand and never notice the Hausmannskost counter ladling Grüne Soße a few rows over.

TipGo at 11:30 before the office rush; the pots are finite and Saturday afternoons run dry early.

Directions

Zum Gemalten Haus ★ 4.5

€€ GermanSachsenhausen

Zum Gemalten Haus pours apfelwein in Geripptes under painted murals on Schweizer Strasse in Frankfurt, a Sachsenhausen tavern running since 1936.

OrderRippchen with sauerkraut and the house Grüne Soße

TipTwo doors from Wagner, so compare Bembel pours in one evening; the murals inside date to the founding family.

Directions

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