Cock-a-Leekie

Scottish boiling fowl simmered to collapse with a mountain of leeks, and prunes if you have any sense

Origin: Scotland

From the journey of Leek.

Scotland's great leek soup, and the argument it starts is about dried fruit. Cock-a-leekie is a whole boiling fowl simmered for hours with leeks in a quantity that would alarm most cooks, until the bird gives up entirely and the broth turns golden and faintly sweet. It opens a Burns Supper and a Hogmanay dinner, and Sir Walter Scott put it in The Fortunes of Nigel as a fixed emblem of Scottish hospitality. The earliest known record of the name comes in January 1737, in the household book of Ochtertyre in Perthshire, where a dinner of 'cockie leekie fowlls in it' comes round again and again. The prunes are the disputed element and the position taken here is that they are essential. They are a medieval survival, from a period when European cooking routinely set dried fruit against meat, and Scotland kept the habit long after England abandoned it. Fynes Moryson, travelling through Scotland in 1598, noted that the Scots brought prunes home from Bordeaux along with their wine, and at a knight's table he found that 'the upper messe in steede of porredge, had a Pullet with some prunes in the broth'; it is sometimes cited as the first cock-a-leekie on record, though he names no leeks. What the prunes do is give the broth a dark sweetness that meets the salt of the fowl and the mild onion sweetness of the leeks, and a version without them is a perfectly pleasant chicken and leek soup that is not this dish. They are added late so they soften without disintegrating. The leeks go in twice, and it is the same technique the Welsh use for cawl: a large quantity early, which cooks to nothing and gives the broth its body, and a second lot at the end which stays in green rounds. Two nations at opposite ends of Britain arrived at the same solution to the same vegetable. A boiling fowl is the right bird, an old laying hen with tough flesh and a great deal of flavour, and it needs three hours where a roasting chicken needs one.

Ingredients

Broth

1.8 kg boiling fowl, or a large free-range chicken
3 litres cold water
2 whole bay leaves
8 whole black peppercorns
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 whole onion, halved
2 tsp salt, plus more to taste

Leeks

8 whole large leeks, about 1.2 kg, split, washed, and sliced

Body

80 g long-grain rice or pearl barley, optional

To Finish

200 g prunes, stoned
3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method

Put the fowl in a large pan with the cold water, bring slowly to the boil, and skim thoroughly until the surface runs clear.
Add the bay, peppercorns, thyme, halved onion, and salt. Reduce to the barest simmer, cover, and cook for two to two and a half hours for a boiling fowl, or an hour and a quarter for a roasting chicken.
Lift out the bird and set it aside to cool. Strain the broth and discard the aromatics, then return the broth to the pan.
Add two-thirds of the sliced leeks and the rice or barley if using, and simmer for 30 minutes until the leeks have collapsed entirely into the broth.
Meanwhile, strip the meat from the bird, discarding skin and bone, and tear it into generous pieces.
Add the remaining leeks and the prunes and simmer for a further ten minutes.
Return the chicken meat to the pan and warm through for five minutes.
Taste and adjust the salt, which it will need more of than you expect, and grind in the pepper. Scatter with parsley.

Notes

A boiling fowl gives an incomparably better broth than a roasting chicken and is worth ordering from a butcher. It needs the full three hours. One point two kilograms of leeks to one bird is correct. It looks absurd going in and it is the whole character of the soup. On the prunes: include them. If you must compromise, serve them separately in a small dish so the doubters can decline, which is what many Scottish households do. Rice or barley is optional and regional. Barley is the older choice and gives a thicker, more rustic soup. It is better on the second day and freezes well without the prunes, which go grainy. Serve with oatcakes or plain bread.

The Gastrographer

Name: Cock-a-Leekie
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 3 h
Total time: 3 h 20 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Scotland
Ingredients: 1.8 kg boiling fowl, or a large free-range chicken; 3 litres cold water; 2 whole bay leaves; 8 whole black peppercorns; 3 sprigs fresh thyme; 1 whole onion, halved; 2 tsp salt, plus more to taste; 8 whole large leeks, about 1.2 kg, split, washed, and sliced; 80 g long-grain rice or pearl barley, optional; 200 g prunes, stoned; 3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control