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Soup

A creamy leek soup thickened with tapioca, enriched with egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Chop the leeks and place them in a clean pan with cold water, butter, tapioca, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer until soft.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and return the soup to the pan.

  4. Add milk and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the hot soup over the beaten egg yolks and cream in a tureen.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Provide the main body and savoury flavour of the soup once softened and sieved.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the leeks as they soften.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, softening the soup's flavour.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when stirred in with the hot liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot soup over the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Pour slowly into the yolk and cream mixture while stirring so they warm gradually and thicken smoothly.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk, egg, cream. 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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