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Leek Soup Parmentier

A leek soup thickened with mashed potatoes, butter, milk, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Leek Soup Parmentier

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cut the leeks into small pieces.

  2. Fry the leeks in a stew pan with butter.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and water; bring to a boil until browned.

  4. Press the mixture through a strainer.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in the milk, mashed potatoes, and onion.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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, mildly sweet onion flavour and soften into the soup.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the leeks colour in the pan.
Potatoes
Starch that thickens the soup and gives it a body.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic, savoury depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Browning the leeks in butter. Browning happens in the fat, where sugars and proteins react at high heat. Water cannot brown above its boiling point, so colour should come from frying the leeks before the water is added.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

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