Name: Cock-a-Leeky
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken; 2 leeks, chopped; 4 cups chicken broth; 1 cup diced potatoes; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

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.

Make the soup

In a large pot, combine the chicken, leeks, and chicken broth.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and return it to the pot.
Add the diced potatoes, salt, and pepper, and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Serve

Serve hot, garnished with fresh parsley.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Chicken + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,756 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Leek + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together30 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Potato + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,303 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

Whole chicken: Provides the meat and flavour for the broth, and is shredded back into the soup.
Leeks: Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Chicken broth: Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Potatoes: Soften during cooking and add body and starch that thickens the soup slightly.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

Thymebetter flavor fit
Garlicbetter flavor fit
Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, leek, potato, pepper. 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.