Name: Leeks for Garnish
Ingredients: Leeks; Salt; Butter; Flour; Pepper; Stock; Cream or Egg Yolk; Milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Leeks for Garnish

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and trim the leeks, cutting off the green part.
Put them in salted water and parboil.
Drain and dry the leeks, then cut them into small pieces.
In a saucepan, melt butter and mix with flour over low heat until combined.
Slowly stir in enough stock to moisten, then add the leeks.
Season with salt and pepper, and simmer until tender.
Mix in cream or beaten egg yolk with milk before serving.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together965 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, cream, milk):

Potatofits better
Leekthe original
Spinachfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well

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