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Potato and Leek Soup, Maigre

A soup of leeks, potatoes, butter, and cream simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and potato work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Potato and Leek Soup, Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leeks

  1. Trim the roots and outer leaves of the leeks and wash them.

  2. Cut the leeks into 1‑inch pieces and boil in water for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove the leeks and place them in a saucepan with butter, pepper, and salt.

Make the soup

  1. Pour boiling water over the leeks.

  2. Peel and cut the potatoes, then add them to the leeks.

  3. Boil until the potatoes are soft.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve, return to the saucepan, and add cream.

  5. 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. Leek + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Provide the main savoury flavour and body of the soup.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the leeks as they cook.
Mealy potatoes
Break down when boiled and sieved, giving the soup a thick, smooth texture.
Cream
Adds fat and a silky, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a sieve. Mealy potatoes must be fully soft before sieving, because firm pieces will not pass through and will leave the soup lumpy. Sieving then breaks down cell walls for a smooth, even texture.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, potato, 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.

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