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Soup

Cock-a-Leekie

A soup made with fowl, marrow bone, beef, leeks, and prunes, served with the fowl only.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 659 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl butyrate, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the fowl, marrow bone, beef, and enough water to cover the ingredients.

  2. Add the white parts of the leeks and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer until the meat is tender, skimming off any foam.

  4. Just before serving, add the prunes to the pot.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with the fowl, but do not include the beef or marrow bone.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main meat and flavor as it simmers into the broth.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Prunes
Add sweetness and a soft, tender texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skimming off any foam while simmering. Foam is made of coagulated proteins and impurities that can cloud the broth and give it an off flavor. Skimming keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

“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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