Frankfurter Grüne Sosse (Frankfurt Green Sauce)

Frankfurt Green Sauce with new potatoes and boiled eggs.

This is a traditional recipe from Frankfurt, my native town in the Bundesland of Hessen in the middle of Germany. The sauce has to be made from seven herbs, because 7 is a magic number.

Ingredients

300g yoghurt
1-2 tbsp mayonnaise
100ml Cream or sour cream
Juice of half a lemon to taste
Sea salt
1 tsp. mustard
Freshly ground pepper and a little nutmeg to taste.
Up to 100g of a variety of fresh herbs depending on the season preferably parsley, chives, dill, tarragon, lemon balm, salad burnet, sorrel or borage, chervil, watercress, young spinach leaves
Garlic (1 clove), finely chopped

Method

Mix yoghurt, cream and mayonnaise well.
Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, mustard and lemon juice.
Wash herbs and chop finely and stir into sauce.
Add the finely chopped garlic.
Serve with steamed, baked or boiled potatoes, peeled boiled eggs, cut in half and a big green salad.

Note

You can make this sauce dairy free/vegan – use dairy free coconut yoghurt, homemade cashew nut mayonnaise and cream or shop bought dairy free cream and egg free/dairy/gluten free mayonnaise.

What exactly is Frankfurter Grüne Soße? A very short history.

There are heated debates about the origins of the Frankfurter Grüne Soße (“Frankfurter Grie Soß”). It is not certain whether French immigrants or Italian trading families brought the recipe to Frankfurt. The most famous myth is that it was one of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s favourite dishes, although the first published recipe appeared in a cookbook by Wilhemine Rührig only in 1860, almost 30 years after Goethe’s death.

Frankfurter Grüne Soße has a protected geographical status in Germany and there is even a Grüne Soße monument in Frankfurt-Oberrad: Seven green houses, one for each herb.

The original herb packages which you can buy in shops and on markets included the seven herbs: Borage, Chervil, Cress, Parsley, Salad Burnet, Sorrel and Chives.