Name: Leek Soup
Ingredients: leeks; 1 egg yolk; bread crumbs; butter; slices of lemon

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Leek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Pick, gut, and clean the leeks.
Brush the leeks with the egg yolk.
Sprinkle with bread crumbs.
Roast the leeks over a fire, basting continually with butter and sprinkling with more bread crumbs until well coated.
Serve on bread crumbs in clarified butter and garnish with lemon slices.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Leek + lemontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together162 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Leek + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Leek + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together848 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).