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Leek Soup, or Cock-a-Leekie

A soup made with leeks, beef stock, pepper, sea salt, and fowl, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Leek Soup, or Cock-a-Leekie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the leeks, cutting the white and tender green parts into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Wash the leeks again and drain in a colander.

Cook

  1. Bring the beef stock to a boil.

  2. Add the leeks to the boiling stock and simmer gently for 3 hours.

  3. Add the fowl during cooking to ensure it is well boiled.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Leek + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. 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

Leeks
Provide the main body and savory, mild onion flavor of the soup.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.
Fowl
Adds meat and richness to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Add the leeks to the boiling stock and simmer gently for 3 hours. Simmering gently keeps the broth clear and the leeks tender; a hard boil can cloud the liquid and break the leeks down unevenly over the long cook.

Swap the leek

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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