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Cock-A-Leekie
I chicken, about three pounds, 3 bunches of leeks, 4 quarts of stock, Salt and pepper to taste.
Wash the leeks, take off part of the heads and roots, cover with boiling water. Let them stand five minutes, cut them in pieces. Draw and truss the fowl; put it in a kettle, add the leeks and stock. If without stock, water will answer. Cover and simmer slowly three hours, skimming at the first boil. When ready to serve, take out the chicken, remove the skin and cut the meat into dice. Put it into the tureen. Press the soup through a purée sieve, return to the kettle and bring to boiling point. Season with salt and pepper, pour over the chicken and serve. This soup is better the second day and will bear warming over several times. 1 pound of lean beef,
A plain Scottish chicken-and-leek broth, scaled for a large household pot. Two things need attention: the chicken does not want three hours, and the stray line of type at the end belongs to the next recipe.
- The stray last line"1 pound of lean beef" is the first ingredient of the following recipe, caught by the compositor. It has nothing to do with this soup.
- Take the chicken out earlyA 3 lb bird is done in about 1 to 1 1/4 hours of gentle simmering; three hours leaves the meat stringy and flavourless. Lift it out when the thigh reaches 165F, cut the meat off, and return the carcass and skin to the pot to finish the three hours if you want the fuller broth.
- Three bunches of leeksGenuinely ambiguous, since the recipe gives no weight; reckon on roughly 2 lb trimmed weight, or six to eight modern supermarket leeks. Use the pale and light green parts, and slice the dark tops in for the broth if you like.
- Four quarts of stockSixteen cups, which fills a 6- to 8-quart stockpot with the bird in it. Water alone works, as the recipe says, but the result is thinner; a light chicken stock is closest to the intention.
- "Draw and truss the fowl"Drawing means removing the innards, already done for you. Trussing just keeps the legs from splaying in the pot; a loop of string is enough.
- The purée sieveThe puree sieve -- Pressing the broth through a sieve pushes the softened leeks through, which is what gives this version its body. A food mill or the coarse disc of a ricer does the same job.
- Season at the endReducing over three hours concentrates the salt, so hold off until the broth is strained and back at a boil. A generous quantity of black pepper is traditional.
- YieldAbout eight to ten servings as a first course. The claim that it improves overnight is correct, and it reheats well, though the diced chicken toughens a little each time.
Cock-a-leekie is recorded in cookery manuscripts by the eighteenth century and generally traced to the older practice of boiling an aged, tough bird with whatever alliums the kailyard held. The name is literal: cock and leek, the cock being an old rooster whose long simmering was necessity rather than choice, which explains the three hours here even though a modern young bird does not need them. Some versions are said to include prunes, sometimes with a spoonful of sugar, and Scottish cooks still argue about whether they belong; this book, which puts the soup in among its leek dishes, quietly leaves them out.