cock-a-leekie soup

It sounds dirty. But it's not. It's chicken and leek soup. Cock-a-leekie is the Scottish name for it, and plus, it's much more fun than "chicken and leeks". I'll take any opportunity to throw the word "cock" out in polite or food related conversation.

Hee, hee. It's just funny...cock-a-leekie...okay, I'm done now.

Back to the business at hand;

before shaving my head last night I made soup. I've been wanting to make this very traditional Scottish soup for some time now both because it sounded so damned tasty and because I have an incurable obsession with a series of books based in 18th century Scotland and, well, I've taken to trying to make many of the dishes they eat in said books.

(It's a very strange obsession, they're not the kind of books I'm generally into but, damn-it, I can't stop. No really, I've tried. I keep re-reading them. The historical accuracy is incredible and....oh forget it. I just like 'em. A lot.)

So here is my traditonal cock-a-leekie (with a few variations)

1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
*3 slices nice fatty bacon diced
1/2 a chicken (about 2 lbs.)
5 or 6 cups of chicken stock and or water
6 leeks white and green parts chopped
garni of 1 bay leaf, parsley and thyme
1 tsp. brown sugar
**5 or 6 potatoes quartered
***couple handfuls pitted dates
s&p

Heat olive oil in big soup pan.
Add garlic and bacon and saute for 2 or 3 minutes (you don't want to crisp the bacon, just release some of the fat and get it started.)
Add the 1/2 chicken as a whole (skin and all - for the sake of flavour.)
Add stock/water.
Bring to a boil and ladle off any scum.
Add leeks and potato.
Add garni.
Add brown sugar.
Reduce heat to a simmer.
Simmer for 2-3 hours (add dates in the last hour to 30 minutes.)
When the chicken is falling off the bone remove it and strip the meat from the bones, chop into bite sized chunks and add back to soup.

This soup was so incredibly tasty (should be even better tonight.) The chicken and the potatoes just flake apart. The leeks are so soft and tender. It's the unexpected sweetness from the dates that really got me though. Incredible! All the textures and flavours in the soup just blend together into something wonderful and filling and warming on a dark, windy night.

* There is no garlic ingredient in the traditional recipes. However, I'm pretty sure garlic wasn't being used for anything more than medicinal purposes in the 16th century. Poor people didn't know what they were missing! Also bacon is traditionally an optional ingredient, but we all know everything's better with bacon!

** Potatoes are not a part of the traditional dish. In fact, they didn't have tatties in the highlands back then (learned that from my Scottish books.) The Scots would have used rice or barley to thicken the soup. But, I'm not a big fan of either ingredient in abundance in my soups. I do like potatoes however and I especially like the way they just fall apart into the soup in this recipe. Great texture!

*** The traditional recipe calls for prunes. Dates just sounded much more appealing to me.