Cock-a-Leekie

Ingredients

• 41b. or 51b. of shin of beef
• 3galls. of cold water
• a roasted capon or fowl
• lib. of blanched leeks
• another pound of leeks
• salt
• pepper

Method

1. 1

   Finely chop 4 or 5 pounds of shin of beef, put it into a saucepan with 3 gallons of cold water, and boil until a rich liquor is obtained; strain this into a saucepan, pouring it over a roasted capon or fowl, and boil for three or four minutes; put in 1 pound of blanched leeks, well cleaned and cut into thin lengths, and boil for half-an-hour longer.

2. 2

   Take out the bird, bone it and chop it up, return it to the pan, add another pound of leeks, season with salt and pepper, and boil again until the leeks are done and the soup is quite thick.

3. 3

   Serve hot.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The encyclopædia of practical cookery (1890) by Theodore Francis Garrett, page 392. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

COCK-A-LEEKIE. — Although Scotland claims the supreme credit for this dish, it is hut the Scottish edition of a fourteenth-century English dish, known in those days as ma-lachi, or ma-leaclii, “ ma ” being the old English term for fowl. In making malachi, the bird was half roasted and then boiled in broth until the meat would fall from the bones, when the whole bird was chopped to pieces, and served with a strong broth made from the fowl stock, and flavoured with an extra quantity of onions and other vegetables, syrup, spice, and raisins or currants. In Scotland the orthodox mode of procedure was to boil a capon in broth, and when the liquor began to boil, pop in a large proportion of white leeks. After an hour’s boiling the fowl was removed, and the flesh cut into pieces off the bones and returned to the broth with another batch of leeks, pepper, salt, and stewed prunes and raisins. With lialf-an-hour’s more boiling the Cock-a-Leekie would be ready to serve. A notion prevails amongst a few unenlightened persons that this soup requires, as a sine qua non, an old cock for its correct manufacture ; but this is not the case, for if the bird be not a young one it is better left out, and some other meat, such as veal or lean pork, substituted. Then, again, the leek element may be in excess for some tastes — indeed, it very often is — but this is due to a mis- conception of the meaning of the term “leekie,” that is, if the English origin of the dish be accepted ; for the word lachi or leachi, following the “ ma ” in ma- lachi, does not refer to leeks, but to a “ slice.” Latterly, in Scotland, the prunes have been omitted, which, perhaps, may be due to- an opinion expressed by Talleyrand in favour of the soup, but advising that if the prunes were boiled in it they should not be served. Soyer wrote : “With all due respect to Scotch cookery, I will always give the preference in the way of soup to their Cock-a-Leekie, even before their inimitable hotch-potch,” a remark that, apart from the acknowledged excellence of these two, and many other Scottish dishes, was probably written during, or in memory of, a visit to the Land o’ Cakes ; for Soyer rarely praised any other dishes than his own — and, perhaps, in this case he was referring to his personal preparation. The following receipts are modern : Cock-a-Leekie. — Finely chop 41b. or 51b. of shin of beef, put it into a saucepan with 3galls. of cold water, and boil until a rich liquor is obtained ; strain this into a saucepan, pouring it over a roasted capon or fowl, and boil for three or four minutes ; put in lib. of blanched leeks, well cleaned and cut into tin. lengths, and boil for half-an-liour longer. Take out the bird, bone it and chop it up, return it to the pan, add another pound of leeks

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.