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Leek, with Poached Eggs

A savory leek dish topped with poached eggs and a sauce of butter, flour, milk, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Leek, with Poached Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onion, carrot, and turnip thinly.

  2. Prepare the leeks by removing the roots and outer leaves, then soak in cold water.

  3. Bring the leeks to a boil in the water, then strain.

Cook the leeks

  1. In a saucepan, heat 1 ounce of butter, then add the leeks, onion, carrot, turnip, bouquet garni, bay leaf, and mace. Fry slowly for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the stock, cover, and cook gently for about 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In another saucepan, melt the remaining butter, add the flour, and fry for a few minutes. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Cut the leeks lengthwise into quarters and then into 2 or 3 pieces. Keep them warm and strain any remaining stock into the sauce.

  3. Arrange the toast in the center of a serving dish, pile the leeks on top, pour the sauce over, and place the poached eggs around the base.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Slow cooking in stock turns them soft and tender, so they hold together when served.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the vegetables fry gently and build flavour.
Flour
Thickens the milk and stock into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly in butter.
Milk
Forms the body of the white sauce, adding creaminess and mild sweetness.
White stock
Gives moisture and savoury flavour as the leeks braise slowly.
Poached eggs
Provide a soft, runny yolk that enriches the sauce and dish when cut.

The step that matters

Cooking the leeks gently for about 1.5 hours. Low, covered cooking breaks down the tough leek fibres until tender. Boiling hard instead can leave them stringy and make the stock reduce unevenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (leek, onion, carrot, turnip, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against leek, onion, carrot, turnip, butter, flour, milk. 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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