🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Scotland
Cock-a-leekie
A Scottish soup of a boiling fowl or chicken simmered with leeks, traditionally with prunes, and often with barley, served as a starter at Burns Night and St Andrew's Night suppers.
Origin and history
Cock-a-leekie is a Scottish soup of chicken and leeks, often served as a starter at Burns Night, St Andrew's Night and Hogmanay and listed in Scotland's Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Tasting Table gives the earliest recorded instance as 1598 and the name 'cockie leekie' in an Ochtertyre House account book of 1737, and suggests the soup came from France during the Auld Alliance, with leeks replacing onions. Meg Dods printed a recipe in 1826.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 1.4 kg3 lb whole chicken, a boiling fowl if you can find one, with a longer cooking time
- 4 large leeks, dark green tops kept for the stock, whites sliced in 1 cm (1/2 in) rounds
- 3 carrots, one chopped for the stock, two diced for the soup
- 2 sticks2 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp white peppercorns or white pepper
- 2 tsp salt, adjust at the end
- 2.5 l2 1/2 quarts cold water
- 100 g1/2 cup pearl barley, rinsed
- 100 g1/2 cup ready-to-eat stoned prunes, roughly chopped
- 1 small handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Method
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1. Put the chicken in a large pot with the leek greens, the chopped carrot, celery, bay leaves, pepper, salt and water to just cover. Bring to a boil and skim the foam for the first 10 minutes.
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2. Simmer partly covered for 60 to 70 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the leg moves freely.
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3. Lift out the chicken. Strain the stock, discard the vegetables and bay leaves, and return the stock to the pot.
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4. Add the barley and the two diced carrots to the stock and simmer for 20 minutes.
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5. Meanwhile remove the skin and bones from the chicken and shred the meat.
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6. Add the sliced leek whites and the prunes and simmer 15 minutes more, until the leeks are tender and the barley is soft with a slight bite.
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7. Return the chicken to the pot, season with salt and white pepper, and warm through for 5 minutes.
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8. Stir in most of the parsley and serve with the rest on top, with bread or oatcakes.
Notes
- Leeks go in late so they stay bright; the St Andrews blog notes that adding them in two stages works well, half dissolving to thicken the broth and half keeping their shape. Meg Dods's recipe (1826) is purist: good stock, a capon or old fowl and plenty of leeks, with no prunes, and she says the bird is sometimes served in the tureen with the soup.
- Prunes are traditional in many recipes but optional; some cooks cook them in the soup and remove them before serving. Live Breathe Scotland says they go in for the last simmer so they melt into the broth, and the soup still works without them.
- Thickening: pearl barley is the usual choice (chewy, and it thickens the broth); the St Andrews blog says traditional recipes use barley or oatmeal and modern ones usually rice.
- A boiling fowl gives a richer stock but needs much longer cooking, about 2 to 3 hours, until the meat is tender.
- Often a starter at Burns Night, St Andrew's Night and Hogmanay. Keeps 3 days in the fridge.
Adapted from Live Breathe Scotland, Cock-a-Leekie Soup, Scotland's Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Cock a Leekie, Tasting Table, The origins of cock-a-leekie soup, and University of St Andrews Special Collections, 52 Weeks of Historical How-To's, Week 13: Burns Night.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.