Skip to main content
Main

Cock a Leekie Soup

A Scottish soup of veal, leeks, bacon, and spices simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Veal and leek work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 334 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl butyrate, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. In a pan, combine veal, butter, bacon, cloves, onions, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook over medium heat until a white glaze forms at the bottom.

  3. Add 5 pints of water and simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture, reserving the best pieces of veal.

Prepare the leeks

  1. Blanch the leeks in a gallon of boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain.

  2. Boil the stock with half of the leeks until almost pulpy.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the remaining leeks and the reserved meat, then simmer for another 30 minutes. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Veal + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  2. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Clove + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Releases flavor and gelatin into the stock, giving it body and richness.
Leeks
Break down into a pulpy mass that thickens the soup and adds mild sweetness.
Onions
Cooked slowly in fat, they add sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Bacon
Renders fat and adds savory, smoky flavor to the stock.
Butter
Carries flavor from the aromatics and adds richness to the base.

The step that matters

Forming the white glaze over medium heat. Gentle heat slowly draws flavor from the veal, bacon and onions onto the pan bottom. If the heat is too high, the glaze scorches, giving the stock a bitter, burnt taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, onion, pepper, sugar, leek):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, pepper, sugar, leek. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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

Illustration of Veal PattiesIllustrationVeal Patties50 recipesIllustration of Leek SoupIllustrationLeek Soup31 recipesIllustration of Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothIllustrationBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesIllustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipes