Cock-a-Leekie

Outlander Kitchen

We love my own version of cock-a-leekie (https://cookwithheather.com/Heathers-Cock-a-Leekie-Soup-(Chicken-and-Leek-Soup)/), but it is not at all authentic, so I was really excited to try this one from Outlander Kitchen. This recipe is HEAVY on leeks and lighter on the chicken than my version. It also doesn't have any grains or potatoes added for heft, so it's a pretty light soup comparatively. I think it would make a great spring meal; just add some bread, like the Brown Buns at Beauly (https://cookwithheather.com/Outlander-Kitchen-Brown-Buns-at-Beauly/) we made last week and you'd have a nice light lunch.

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with heather
[00:07]: today
[00:08]: it's kind of a dreary day it's between
[00:10]: christmas and new year's
[00:12]: we're all just sort of sitting at home
[00:14]: and i thought it would be a good day for
[00:15]: soup
[00:17]: and
[00:18]: i decided i would go ahead and make the
[00:20]: cockaliki from outlander kitchen now
[00:23]: i have made cockaliki before on the
[00:25]: channel and i'll link that up there but
[00:27]: my it was my recipe it's not super
[00:32]: authentic
[00:33]: it was just what i like so this one is
[00:35]: supposed to be a little bit more
[00:37]: authentic
[00:38]: very scottish been
[00:42]: around for a really long time and uh
[00:45]: so i decided i would make that today so
[00:47]: let's get started
[00:49]: we're starting with a
[00:51]: relatively small chicken
[00:55]: and the first thing i'm going to do
[00:57]: is she says to cut off the wings
[01:02]: i assume so these don't
[01:04]: just
[01:05]: i'm just using these kitchen scissors
[01:07]: for it because
[01:08]: it's a small chicken and the bones are
[01:10]: not hard to cut she says to save these
[01:13]: and
[01:14]: use them for something else i don't know
[01:16]: what i'm going to use them for i
[01:18]: probably i do keep um
[01:21]: bits of chicken
[01:23]: bones and stuff in the freezer sometimes
[01:26]: to make
[01:26]: chicken stock once i gather enough so i
[01:29]: would probably do that
[01:31]: um
[01:32]: i assume it's just so it doesn't fall
[01:33]: off into the
[01:35]: uh into the broth and you have to pick
[01:37]: them out because you're not gonna strain
[01:39]: this one
[01:41]: also we're going to use some butcher's
[01:43]: twine which i am not a
[01:46]: pro at but
[01:50]: to tie the legs together so it sort of
[01:54]: all stays
[01:59]: together while it cooks
[02:01]: all right so it's knotted whatever it's
[02:04]: fine
[02:06]: i hope i didn't know it could be short
[02:08]: okay
[02:09]: so
[02:11]: there we have that
[02:12]: this is going to go
[02:14]: in to a stock pot
[02:17]: and we're going to cover this
[02:19]: with water there's a specific
[02:21]: measurement so i'm going to use that
[02:23]: which i normally would never do i would
[02:25]: just sort of eyeball it and add more
[02:26]: later if i need to
[02:28]: but
[02:29]: so we're going to
[02:31]: cover this with cold water
[02:33]: and bring it to a boil on high heat i'm
[02:35]: probably not going to show you that part
[02:36]: because it's really boring
[02:39]: but there are a few other things we need
[02:40]: to talk about while that happens
[02:42]: my chicken
[02:44]: still coming to a boil that'll take a
[02:45]: little while but i wanted to talk about
[02:47]: the leeks
[02:48]: so i've already prepared the leeks much
[02:50]: like i do for mine except they're bigger
[02:53]: pieces so
[02:55]: i cut them in half and then cut them
[02:57]: into about an inch long sections
[03:01]: put them in a bowl of cold water and
[03:03]: sort of rub them around a bit and try to
[03:05]: get all of the silty sandy dirty stuff
[03:08]: off it stays at the bottom
[03:11]: use your hands or
[03:15]: a slotted spoon whatever and put them
[03:18]: somewhere to drain i put these in as she
[03:20]: suggested a salad spinner so i went
[03:22]: ahead and used my salad spinner this is
[03:24]: a lot of leeks just the white and green
[03:26]: parts um
[03:29]: it's a lot of leeks
[03:31]: so these are all prepared
[03:33]: we're not going to use them all at once
[03:34]: which is interesting
[03:36]: uh the other ingredients besides salt
[03:38]: and pepper we have some parsley here uh
[03:41]: it's quite a lot of parsley it's
[03:43]: what does she mean by a sprig i don't
[03:45]: know whatever
[03:47]: it's not gonna
[03:48]: make a huge huge difference if i
[03:51]: put too much in this because parsley is
[03:53]: a relatively mild flavor
[03:55]: um we're making a bouquet garni with
[03:58]: this parsley which is really big which
[03:60]: is why i have a relatively large piece
[04:02]: of cheesecloth
[04:06]: we've got parsley
[04:08]: we've got a few cloves
[04:12]: and
[04:13]: a few whole black peppercorns
[04:17]: so
[04:18]: um
[04:19]: and that is yeah
[04:21]: that is it
[04:22]: uh so i'm just going to sort of pull up
[04:26]: the sides
[04:29]: and tie it up with butcher's
[04:31]: twine which i have had so much luck with
[04:34]: um
[04:39]: so that we can pull it out of the
[04:42]: broth
[04:43]: very easily when we are
[04:46]: done with it when it has given
[04:48]: all of it all that it's got
[04:52]: to the stock
[04:54]: there we go so
[04:57]: that's ready
[04:58]: um
[04:59]: and then the other ingredients we have
[05:02]: some whole dried prunes so dried plums
[05:05]: um i just bought some at the grocery
[05:07]: store
[05:08]: and they are ready for when they go in
[05:11]: now i'm probably not gonna show you what
[05:14]: we do with the chicken
[05:16]: um because
[05:18]: uh until there's one part i will
[05:20]: probably do just a sort of one camera
[05:22]: thing with um because it's a little bit
[05:25]: tricky but
[05:26]: when the chicken comes to a boil
[05:28]: we're gonna do
[05:29]: [Music]
[05:31]: a little bit of something there and then
[05:33]: we're going to add
[05:35]: half of our leeks and our bouquet garni
[05:38]: and it's just gonna cook for two hours
[05:40]: uncovered at a simmer
[05:43]: and we're not gonna touch it just don't
[05:45]: stir it just
[05:47]: uh take the
[05:49]: heat down to a low simmer
[05:51]: and let it cook so we'll show you when
[05:54]: we do that
[05:56]: other than that we'll see you in a
[05:58]: couple hours
[05:59]: so
[06:00]: uh it's just come up to a boil and we're
[06:02]: going to turn it down to a simmer she
[06:05]: says sort of medium low
[06:07]: i'm going to start there we're going to
[06:09]: use a slotted spoon to skim away this
[06:12]: stuff i have a bowl with
[06:14]: a paper towel in it just to be able to
[06:16]: more easily
[06:19]: discard it later
[06:23]: so
[06:24]: these are she says impurities and fat
[06:29]: you don't have to do this part
[06:33]: if you do though the stock will be a
[06:34]: little bit clearer
[06:39]: i don't always do this part but since
[06:41]: she says to i will
[06:49]: and i think that's good enough
[06:51]: i can't get anything else to sort of
[06:53]: stay in my spoon anyway
[06:54]: all right all done you can do that again
[06:57]: if you really feel than the need but
[06:60]: it shouldn't be too bad after this we're
[07:02]: going to add our bouquet garni that we
[07:04]: made
[07:06]: and kind of use our spoon to
[07:08]: make sure that gets down into the
[07:12]: stock
[07:13]: and we're going to put half of our
[07:17]: leeks in here so
[07:23]: i'm just going to roughly estimate
[07:27]: half
[07:33]: that should be plenty
[07:35]: i'm going to use the rest later
[07:37]: don't stir this
[07:39]: just simmer it for two hours
[07:43]: so our chicken has been simmering for
[07:46]: about an hour about two hours um i did
[07:50]: turn the chicken over i didn't stir it
[07:52]: but i did turn the chicken over at
[07:55]: uh about an hour because it seemed like
[07:58]: part of the breast and the leg was not
[08:01]: going to be submerged
[08:04]: and now we're going to take out
[08:07]: the bouquet garnier
[08:12]: has given everything to the stock
[08:16]: you can always
[08:17]: drain your plate back in
[08:19]: i'm going to try really hard not to
[08:22]: pull the chicken apart but i did oh well
[08:27]: um
[08:29]: and
[08:30]: take this out we're going to not use the
[08:33]: breast meat
[08:35]: for our soup
[08:37]: she says to reserve that for another use
[08:41]: but we're going to
[08:46]: shred up the
[08:49]: dark meat to put in the soup
[08:51]: about five minutes before we eat now
[08:54]: what we need to do now i'm going to turn
[08:55]: the heat up a little bit we don't want
[08:57]: it to be more than a simmer
[08:59]: she also says you can skim this at this
[09:01]: point but there's not really a lot to
[09:03]: skim
[09:05]: i don't see anything there's definitely
[09:06]: some fat in there i don't really care
[09:08]: about that
[09:11]: but there's no foamy stuff to skim so
[09:16]: now we're going to add the rest of the
[09:17]: ingredients to this
[09:20]: we're going to add
[09:21]: our prunes
[09:22]: just whole
[09:28]: there we go
[09:30]: and the rest of the leeks so some of the
[09:33]: leeks will be you know a really long
[09:35]: cook because they were in there for
[09:38]: you know a long time with
[09:40]: the chicken and the rest will be sort of
[09:43]: you know cooked but sort of less cooked
[09:46]: um
[09:47]: because we're going to cook this for 30
[09:50]: to 45 minutes until
[09:52]: those are
[09:53]: tender
[09:55]: but we also need to add some salt and
[09:58]: pepper to this
[10:00]: she says originally there would they
[10:03]: would have used
[10:05]: what they called a jamaican long pepper
[10:07]: instead of
[10:09]: black pepper
[10:11]: uh but we didn't have one of those
[10:14]: i think that would have gone in the
[10:15]: bouquet garni it's also a little bit
[10:17]: spicier whatever
[10:19]: i don't know when black pepper
[10:23]: started being available but whatever
[10:31]: so salt
[10:33]: pepper
[10:35]: simmer for another 30 to 45 minutes and
[10:39]: uh right before we eat we're gonna put
[10:41]: in just the meat from this chicken just
[10:43]: the dark meat
[10:44]: and it'll be ready to eat
[10:52]: on this episode of cooking the books
[10:54]: with heather you watched me make the
[10:55]: cockaliki soup from
[10:58]: outlander kitchen i don't think soup is
[11:00]: in the name though
[11:01]: but it is a soup
[11:03]: um
[11:04]: so i have previously
[11:06]: made my own kakaliki soup
[11:09]: on this channel mine is
[11:13]: not authentic
[11:15]: kind of made it all up myself
[11:17]: looking at the internet and putting some
[11:19]: things together and making it the way we
[11:20]: like
[11:21]: um
[11:23]: this was a good soup
[11:25]: it was
[11:26]: a very light soup there's no um
[11:29]: there's no rice or barley like i put in
[11:32]: mine or any sort of noodles or carbs or
[11:34]: anything like that so it's vegetables
[11:36]: and meat and a lot of broth
[11:38]: um
[11:39]: which is fine if that's what you're
[11:41]: you're looking for in your soup um
[11:44]: the prunes were kind of interesting
[11:48]: i don't think we loved it but you know
[11:50]: it wasn't bad tasted fine
[11:53]: um
[11:54]: but we did find it to be sort of a light
[11:57]: meal so you would definitely want to
[11:59]: have this with something like the brown
[12:01]: buns at beuley which i've made
[12:04]: and i'll link up here
[12:06]: um so
[12:08]: it's definitely a lighter soup than mine
[12:13]: and my kids
[12:15]: one of them liked it
[12:16]: the other one who really adores my soup
[12:19]: just refused to eat more than a few
[12:21]: spoonfuls of it so
[12:24]: he claimed he doesn't like leaks
[12:26]: when mine also has a lot of leaks in it
[12:28]: so
[12:29]: can't be that
[12:31]: who knows
[12:32]: um it's not that difficult and
[12:36]: we did
[12:37]: i did use the leftover
[12:39]: chicken breast that you don't put into
[12:41]: the soup
[12:43]: for a chicken salad and that turned out
[12:46]: really good
[12:47]: but do remember that you will need to
[12:49]: salt anything that you use that in
[12:53]: a little more heavily than you normally
[12:55]: would something like if you were using
[12:56]: rotisserie chicken because it's unsalted
[12:60]: you don't salt it don't salt the broth
[13:02]: as you're making it so you only salt
[13:04]: everything afterwards so that means meat
[13:06]: has no salt
[13:08]: but it was really delicious and i think
[13:09]: it was probably one of the best chicken
[13:11]: salads i've made at least in a while
[13:13]: um
[13:16]: so
[13:17]: i would call this pretty easy you don't
[13:19]: really need much
[13:22]: there weren't a whole lot of ingredients
[13:24]: and
[13:25]: supposedly it's pretty authentic
[13:28]: but it is a very light meal so it's
[13:30]: probably something you could have in the
[13:31]: summer if you really wanted to instead
[13:33]: of just a hearty winter comfort soup
[13:37]: probably great if you're sick
[13:41]: anyway if you enjoyed watching me make
[13:43]: this please give me a thumbs up hit the
[13:45]: subscribe button and come back and watch
[13:47]: me make something else next week
[13:49]: [Music]