Why it works: Leek and pepper work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 965 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Commonly Called Cock-a-leekie
10 personsIngredients
Directions
Prepare
Truss the fowl as for boiling.
Wash the leeks (and, if old, scald them in boiling water for a few minutes), remove roots and part of heads, cut into lengths about an inch.
Simmer the soup
Put the fowl into the stock, with one half of the leeks, and allow it to simmer gently.
After half an hour, add the remaining leeks, and continue simmering for 3 or 4 hours longer.
Skim the soup carefully, season to taste.
Serve
Remove the fowl, carve it neatly, place pieces in a tureen, pour the thick leek soup over them.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
-
Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned 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
- Leeks
- Give the soup its body and mild onion-like flavour as they soften during long simmering.
- Fowl (in the method)
- Releases flavour and gelatin into the stock, enriching the broth as it simmers.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the fowl and leeks.
The step that matters
Simmer gently and skim carefully. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and prevents the fowl from toughening, while skimming removes foam and impurities that would make the soup cloudy and greasy.
“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.
You might also like
Leek Soup31 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipesThe Sunday pairing: one pairing, the chemistry behind it, and how to cook it. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account for sign-in; Pro adds the full results and chemistry.