Name: Leek Soup
Ingredients: 1 sheep's head; 3 quarts water; 12 leeks, chopped; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; oatmeal (for thickening)

Why it works: Leek and pepper work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 965 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Leek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

Clean the sheep's head thoroughly, split it in half, and remove the brains.

Simmer the soup

Place the head in boiling water and add the leeks and seasoning.
Simmer gently for 4 hours.

Thicken and serve

Mix oatmeal with cold water until smooth to thicken the soup.
Pour the oatmeal mixture into the soup, stirring until well blended.
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.

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.

Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together965 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

Sheep's head: Provides the meat and rich, gelatin-rich body that flavours the broth.
Leeks: Contribute mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Oatmeal: Starch that thickens the liquid as it is stirred in.