Why it works: Leek and pepper work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 965 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-hexanol, which smells resin, flower. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Truss the fowl as for boiling.
Wash the leeks thoroughly, scald them in boiling water if they are old, and cut them into 1-inch lengths.
Simmer
Place the fowl in the stock with half of the leeks and simmer gently.
After 30 minutes, add the remaining leeks and continue to simmer for 3-4 hours.
Skim the soup carefully and season to taste.
Serve
Remove the fowl, carve it neatly, and place the pieces in a tureen.
Pour the thick leek soup over the carved fowl.
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.
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Leek + peppertop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together965 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Capon or large fowl
- Gives the broth its rich meaty flavor and becomes the main meat of the dish.
- Leeks
- Add a mild onion-like flavor and soften into the soup, thickening it as they cook.
- Stock
- Serves as the cooking liquid that carries flavor from the fowl and leeks.
The step that matters
Simmer gently for the full 3-4 hours. A gentle simmer cooks the fowl through evenly without toughening its meat, and keeps the broth clearer than a hard boil would. Skimming during cooking removes foam and fat that would otherwise cloud 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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