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Cock-a-leekie Soup

A Scottish soup made with chicken, leeks, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Cock-a-leekie Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Clean and chop the leeks.

Make the soup

  1. Place the chicken in a pot with water and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the leeks, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and return it to the pot.

  5. Add the rice and cook until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Leek + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together161 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Chicken + leektop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the meat and the flavorful stock that forms the soup base.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Rice
Absorbs liquid as it cooks, thickening the soup and adding body.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, rice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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