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Ek Soup

A soup made from a sheep's head, leeks, and oatmeal, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and pepper work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 965 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the sheep's head by skinning it or removing the skin carefully.

  2. Split the head and remove the brains, then place it in boiling water.

Simmer and thicken

  1. Add the chopped leeks and season with pepper, then simmer gently for 4 hours.

  2. Mix oatmeal with cold water to create a smooth paste, then pour it into the soup.

  3. Continue simmering until the soup is blended and well combined, then serve.

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. 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

Oatmeal
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Leeks
Add mild onion flavour and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Mixing the oatmeal paste. Oatmeal mixed straight into hot liquid forms lumps. Stirring it first into cold water to make a smooth paste lets the starch disperse evenly before it thickens the soup.

“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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