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Pairing

Clove + Leek

A proven pairing. Cooks put them together in 579 recipes, and they share 216 flavor molecules: the top 6% of all ingredient pairs.

Smell alikestrong
Cooked together579 recipes
Ranktop 6% of pairs
Try them in the pairing tool Clove Leek
95clove only 216shared 45leek only Clove · 311 Leek · 261
Circle size = number of flavor molecules on record. Overlap = molecules they share.

Do clove and leek go together?

Yes. 579 recipes in our collection combine them, and they share 216 flavor molecules. That places them in the top 6% of every ingredient pair we score.

Why they work

Almost everything leek carries, clove has too: 216 of leek's 261 flavor molecules also occur in clove. Among the shared key aromas are 2-nonanone (fruity, floral) and coumarin (sweet, hay).

What each one brings

clove

The fruit. Fruity notes make up 17% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 11% for leek. It carries 95 molecules leek doesn't have.

leek

The tartness. Sour notes make up 18% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 12% for clove. It carries 45 molecules clove doesn't have.

Add a third ingredient

  • Sorrel: the best fit for both, top 7% of pairs with clove, top 1% with leek.
  • Turnip: top 6% of pairs with clove, top 1% with leek.
  • Shallot: top 5% of pairs with clove, top 1% with leek.
  • Allspice: top 1% of pairs with clove, top 8% with leek.

Ranked by the average of its two pairing scores. Only foods used in at least 100 recipes are suggested.

Recipes with clove and leek

We have no browsable recipe that lists both clove and leek.

Can you swap one for the other?

Only partly. Most of leek's flavor molecules (216 of 261) are also found in clove, but clove has 95 that leek lacks. Leek gives you part of clove's character without most of its fruit. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

All 216 shared molecules

See every shared molecule grouped by chemical class, with key aromas marked, plus the 95 only in clove and the 45 only in leek.

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Clove and leek questions

Do clove and leek go together?

A proven pairing. Cooks put them together in 579 recipes, and they share 216 flavor molecules: the top 6% of all ingredient pairs.

Why do clove and leek taste good together?

Almost everything leek carries, clove has too: 216 of leek's 261 flavor molecules also occur in clove. Among the shared key aromas are 2-nonanone (fruity, floral) and coumarin (sweet, hay).

What goes with clove and leek?

Sorrel is the best third ingredient: top 7% of pairs with clove and top 1% with leek. Turnip and shallot also fit both.

Can I use leek instead of clove?

Only partly. Most of leek's flavor molecules (216 of 261) are also found in clove, but clove has 95 that leek lacks. Leek gives you part of clove's character without most of its fruit. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

Compare other ingredients

1
2

Two ingredients gives the full side-by-side breakdown; add a third to see a similarity matrix across all of them (up to 6).

Ranks compare this pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. Molecule counts are what the studies and databases we aggregate have reported for each ingredient: a measure of coverage, not a full census. How we score pairs

Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). Compound similarity analysis: Clove vs Leek. https://compkitchen.com/compare/clove-vs-leek. Accessed 2026-11-04.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compare_compound_similarity_analysis_clove_vs_leek_2026,
  title  = {Compound similarity analysis: Clove vs Leek},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compare/clove-vs-leek},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-04}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.