Cock-a-Leekie Soup - Scottish Chicken Soup - Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with cockalicky soup that's right i'm going to show you how to make what is the national soup of scotland which did not earn that title just because of it's hilarious and fun to say name right this really is one of the world's great chicken soups which features one of my all-time favorite secret ingredients okay don't even try to guess you will never get it so with that let's go ahead and get started and before we get to the kaka let's go ahead and begin with our leaky and what i have here is four leaks that weigh about two and a half pounds and we'll get to how to prep these for the soup in a minute but before that what we'll do is cut off the first couple inches of the top green part all right that really tough dark fibrous part at the top since we're going to use that for our broth and then later we'll use the rest of our leeks once that's done and we're ready to do our soup and what we'll do is take and wash and rinse those very well before we add them to our soup pot followed by one large hole giant chicken okay the bigger the better and this one went about four and a half pounds and then to that we will also add one bay leaf three or four cloves of garlic that we cut in half followed by that secret ingredient i mentioned earlier which would be four or five dried plums or as our parents called them prunes i know you didn't see that coming but relax do not get your kilts in a bunch and then at this point i'm gonna go ahead and add three quarts of cold fresh water and while i do i'll explain why we added prunes and why you should not be afraid all right we're actually going to strain those out once our broth is done so we won't be seeing those in our bowl later but they are going to add a beautiful subtle sweetness to the broth not to mention they're going to give our soup a really nice color and at this point we can turn our heat onto high and we'll bring this up to a simmer and now in case you're wondering i'm not going to skim any foam the foam is fine but what i will do as soon as this does start to simmer is turn our heat down to medium low or maybe somewhere between medium low and low and we will simmer this gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes and during that time once in a while we can grab our tongs and we can sort of dunk and swirl that bird around which is mostly so we feel like we're doing something and if you didn't i don't think much bad would happen but because the top of our breasts are out of the water it just seems right to push that chicken down once in a while but don't worry even though a little bit of the breast will be above the surface the heat will get to it and it will cook just fine and that's it while that slowly simmers we can leisurely prep our leaks which we always do the exact same way since it is by far the most effective method and once we trim a little bit of that root part off the white end which holds everything together we'll go ahead and split this right down the center for a leak this size at least or if you happen to have a giant leak you can go ahead and cut it in quarters but anyway once we have that split lengthwise we will simply turn that and cut across like this into about half inch slices although the exact size is up to you i mean you are after all the william wallace of making this cock-a-leaky soup flawless and you do have the freedom to make them a different size if you want but once you pick a size you got to stick with it so they cook evenly plus it will just look nicer so we'll go ahead and cut our leaks up as shown at which point we'll transfer those into a large bowl and then we will fill that bowl with cold fresh water which will allow us to give these a thorough washing and in case you're not familiar leeks are famous for having dirt and sand trap between all those layers which can be very tricky just to rinse out but if you dunk them and wash them in a large amount of water like this any of that sediment and sand will sink to the bottom which is why when we remove these we are just going to grab them from the top and we will transfer those into a bowl and theoretically once we're done our leaks will be clean and any and all sand will be at the bottom so to summarize leaks float sand dozens and by the way these might have been the cleanest leeks i've ever worked with right usually you end up with way more sand than this but anyway make sure you wash your leaks very thoroughly as shown since nobody and i mean nobody wants that in their soup and that's it we can simply reserve our leeks in the fridge until needed and at this point we'll go back and check our chicken which has been simmering for exactly an hour and 15 minutes and you can see here that beautiful deep brown color the prunes added to the stock oh yeah now that is a pretty broth or should i say a bonnie broth did i do that right but anyway let's go ahead and remove that chicken safely to a bowl which i always use tongs for just not a habit since that's how you do in the restaurant but a safer way to do that for the home cook is probably the two fork method and if we stick those into the ribcage on either side letting that hot liquid drain from the cavity and once that's in the bowl we'll simply let that cool down at which point we'll go ahead and pull off all the means and while that happens i generally like to pull off the wings and the leg bones just so that can get a head start adding some flavor to our still simmering broth while we wait for the rest of this to cool because i'm impatient but if you want you can just wait for all this to cool at which point we have some major decisions to make because what we'll do next once our chicken cools is we will separate all the meat from the skin and bones and we will pull and tear that into spoon-sized pieces and then if we want we can just go ahead and finish our soup with our leeks and this cooked chicken or we could and i really really think we should we can add the bones and scraps back to our broth and let it simmer for another hour which i think is going to give us a much more flavorful broth but either way once we have that chicken picked off we will pop that in the fridge until needed and then if we are and i definitely am we'll go ahead and add those bones back to the broth since they still have a decent amount of chicken flavor left but if you don't have the extra hour don't stress your cockaliki will still be cockalicious but if you do have an hour and i bet you do i think this extra step is worth it so i'm going to go ahead and add those and let this simmer for another hour on low or whatever heat setting gives you a nice gentle simmer and after about an hour this is what mine look like and that's it we're finally done with these bones and leek tops and garlic and prunes and bay leaf so i'm gonna go ahead and take this skimmer which in the business we call a spider and i'm going to strain out everything into this bowl which really should have a colander in it since there's still going to be a good amount of liquid attached to those scraps and if you use a colander once that's sitting drains for a while you can just lift that out and pour whatever liquids in the bowl back into the pot which i did anyway just not as easily but anyway the main point here is the only thing we want left in the pot is the broth and once that's happened we can move on to finish our soup which involves adding exactly half of our leeks to the pot oh yeah just half and i'll show you we're going to add the other half later and then we will also at this point add some salt as well as some freshly ground black pepper and of course a few shakes of nope no cayenne not even a wee bit we are giving cayenne the day off and then once we have this seasoned we need to decide if we want to thicken it a little which i like to do with a little bit of white rice but a lot of folks like to use barley or oats or even potatoes if you want or don't use anything at all but i do think it's a better soup with a little bit of body so i like to stir a little bit of rice in and then what we'll do is let this simmer gently for one hour stirring occasionally during which time those leaks are going to get super soft and super sweet and if everything goes according to plan an hour later our mixture should look like this and by the way while that simmers if you want you can skim some of the fat off the top which i usually do to some of it and also if it seems like it's reducing down too far simply add another splash of water alright that is just you cooking and then what we'll do to finish this incredible soup is we will add the rest of our sliced leeks plus our reserved chicken meats which we can use olive for an extra meaty soup or you could do what i did and pull out a handful to use for a couple enchiladas and then because we grow it i like to stir in a little bit of fresh thyme which i think pairs really well with the chicken and the leeks but is it worth buying a whole package at the store just to use a teaspoon maybe not so i guess what i'm really trying to say is you should grow some thyme which you can do on any windowsill along with pretty much all your other culinary herbs and then all we need to do at this point is simply let this simmer on medium-low for about 20 minutes at which point it should be done and the reason we're cooking half the leeks for only 20 minutes is so they retain a little bit of texture all right they're still going to be pretty tender but they're not going to be super super soft and sort of melt into the soup like the first edition but anyway like i said we'll let that simmer for 20 minutes and other than giving this a taste and checking for seasoning since it almost always needs a little more salt but other than that our cockalinky soup is ready to serve which i'm going to do in a very large warm bowl and as far as some finishing touches go i enjoy a little extra freshly ground black pepper on the top and maybe a pinch or two of some sliced chives or green onions and that my friends i promise you will be one of the most delicious chicken soups you've ever had in your life alright thanks to their very high glutamate content leeks are one of the most flavorful vegetables of all time right they just add a ton of savoriness or as the kids like to say umami and i know it looks so simple but it doesn't taste like that oh and in case you're wondering why we didn't add ingredients like carrots and celery which we seem to add to pretty much every soup well the reason you don't see any carrots floating in this is the same reason you don't see any carrots floating in a french onion soup in fact if you go into a french restaurant and you order french onion soup or as they call in france onion soup and it has carrots in it get up and walk out that is a chef that's not to be trusted all right the carrots are just not needed and they're only going to get in the way but anyway that's it my take on kakaliki soup it does take a few hours to make properly but other than having to slice up a few leaks it is extremely simple and easy to make and the results really are stunning so the next time you're in the mood for one of the world's great chicken soups or you just want to rock out with your scottish national soup out i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 324,562

Keywords: Cock-a-Leekie, chicken, Soup, recipe, easy, Scottish, chef, john, food, wishes, cooking, leeks, vegetables, keto, low carb, diet, bone, broth

Id: qWlCbHt_e9Y

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 15 2022