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Leeks with Toasts

A simple dish of boiled leeks served atop buttered toast slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Leeks with Toasts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leeks

  1. Split the leeks nearly in half and wash them well.

  2. Tie the leeks together like asparagus.

Cook the leeks

  1. Boil a pot of water and add the salt.

  2. Cook the leeks in the boiling water until tender.

  3. Drain the leeks in a sieve.

Serve on toast

  1. Butter the slices of bread and place the leeks on top.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Leek + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

  3. Leek + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together848 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Become tender and mild-sweet when simmered, forming the main body of the dish.
Bread
Provides a crisp, absorbent base that holds the cooked leeks.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the bread and helps it brown lightly.

The step that matters

Cook the leeks until tender. Leeks cook quickly in boiling water. Undercooked leeks stay tough and fibrous, while overcooked leeks turn soft and watery, so check them often and drain promptly.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter):

  1. Leekthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter. 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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