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Leek Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, leeks, water, sugar, salt, pepper, and fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Leek Soup

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Heat the dripping over medium heat in a saucepan.

  2. Cut the beef into small pieces and brown them.

  3. Add the water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Trim the roots and green parts of the leeks, slice them lengthwise, wash thoroughly, and cut into ½ inch pieces.

  2. Season the leeks with salt, pepper, and sugar, then add to the beef broth.

  3. Simmer the soup for an additional hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + leektop 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).

  4. Sugar + leektop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together278 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

What each ingredient does

Hough (beef)
Provides rich flavour and body to the broth as it simmers for hours.
Leeks
Supply the main vegetable flavour and soften into the soup during the long simmer.
Dripping (fat)
Carries heat for browning the beef and adds savoury richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the beef. Searing the meat over medium heat before adding water builds deeper, roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction, which a plain boil cannot produce.

Swap the leek

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, 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.

More leek soup recipes

Scotch 9Chicken 4Potato 4Welsh 3 See all 47 →

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