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Soup

Scotch Leek Soup

A hearty soup made with leeks, meat broth, oatmeal, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Scotch Leek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, combine the meat broth, leeks, pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring to a slow boil and cook for 1 hour.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the oatmeal with cold water until smooth.

  2. Pour the oatmeal mixture into the soup and simmer gently for another 30 minutes.

  3. 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 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).

  2. Leek + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Provide the main body and mild onion flavour as they soften during the long simmer.
Oatmeal
Thickens the broth as its starch swells and gives the soup a creamy, hearty body.
Meat broth
Forms the savoury base of the soup and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Mixing the oatmeal smoothly with cold water. Oatmeal starch clumps if it hits hot liquid dry or unevenly. Mixing it smooth with cold water first lets it disperse, so it thickens the soup evenly as it heats.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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