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Cock-a-leekie Soup

A soup made with chicken, leeks, butter, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cock-a-leekie Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, cook the small fowl in water until tender.

  2. Add the leeks and butter to the pot.

  3. Skim off the fat from the surface.

  4. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

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

  3. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. 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

Small fowl
Provides the main meat and rich flavor that the broth is built on.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness as they soften in the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat from the surface. Fat that rises from cooking meat can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Removing it while the soup is still hot gives a cleaner, lighter texture.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, 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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