This classic Scottish soup is comforting, and its origins are rooted in scarcity. Cock-a-leekie forms part of a traditional burns night supper as the soup course. It has undergone a period of modernisation to make it taste more exquisite than its humble roots.
What is Cock-A-Leekie?
Cock-A-Leekie soup is a soup of Scottish origin. It consists of peppered chicken and leeks, cooked in its own cooking liquor and sometimes thickened with rice or barley. Prunes are a traditional part of a Cock-A-Leekie, often added at the start of cooking and slowly simmered with the chicken carcass and leeks. However, it’s common for a julienne of prunes to garnish the soup, bringing sweetness to the intensely savoury soup.
Considered Scotland’s national soup, you’ll find a cock-a-leekie in some variation at a typical burn’s night supper. However, the soup probably has origins in France. This makes sense since its name is thought to be a corruption of the French term “Coq a l’ail,” which means rooster with garlic. However, as the soup made its way to Scotland, garlic and onions became leeks.
Key Ingredients for Cock-A-Leekie
A Small Whole Chicken – I recommend a small chicken around 1kg in weight. Using whole chicken may take a little longer, but this longer cooking time results in a meatier broth with a stronger flavour. However, I’ve cut the chicken into 8 pieces to keep this recipe short. While most chefs would remove the skin and skim the fat from their stock, for this recipe, I’d keep the skin as it has a little bit of fat that will help enrich the soup. Shredding the chicken should feel effortless once the chicken has been slowly poached. However, I strongly recommend removing and discarding the skin here.
Leeks – Leeks come in numerous forms in supermarkets. If you can get untrimmed leeks, opt for those, as the leafy green part can be trimmed effortlessly and used to flavour the chicken stock. However, if your local supermarket only sells trimmed leeks, you can use a little of the leeks to make the stock. The rest is to be slowly cooked in the final soup.
Pearl Barley – Not all cock-a-leekie recipes will call for thicker. Most of them will call for rice. However, I prefer pearl barley as it has a much more comforting feel. That, and it feels more Scottish than rice. You can use rice, but you’d need to adjust the cooking times accordingly. Interestingly, the first recorded recipe used oatmeal as a thickener, so the sky is the limit.
Prunes – Prunes are dried plums and turn intensely sweet when dried. I like to cut them into thin strips and use them to garnish the soup, as this maintains their sweetness and balances out the intense savouriness of the leek and chicken soup. You can also keep them whole if you prefer.
Cock-a-Leekie Soup
Ingredients
Method
- In a large pan, add the chicken pieces with the carrots, celery, leek tops, bay leaves, peppercorns, and thyme. Cover with water and bring to a gentle boil. Cook the chicken for 1 hour until cooked through and tender.
- Remove the chicken and set aside to keep warm. Strain the stock, reserving the stock.
- Wipe the pan clean and add the stock with the leek tops and pearl barley. Bring to a boil and cook for 35-45 minutes until the pearl barley is tender.
- While the barley cooks, shred the chicken. Add the prunes and shredded chicken back to the stock when the barley is tender. Season to taste with salt and lots of pepper.
- Garnish with chopped parsley.
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