Cock-a-Leekie
2kg chicken
2 litres water
7 leeks, including green stem
2 stalks celery, chopped
60g pearl barley
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Bouquet Garni:
4 sprigs parsley
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns

Cover the chicken with water, bring to the boil over high heat, skim off any scum. Add sliced leeks, celery, barley, salt and bouquet garni, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 2 hours until meat almost falls off the bones. Transfer chicken to a plate and allow to cool. Skim fat off cooking liquid, remove bouquet garni. Shred the chicken met, discarding skin and bones. Return meat to the liquid and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

That's the gist ddw, but I'm thinking there is going to be a lot of gunk in with the chicken if I add the barley at the git go. I think my barley is supposed to cook for 30 min only, more or less. However if I do the whole chicken bit first and then add the barley to the cleaned up broth that should do it, right?

Maureen

Had potato and leek soup, this past weekend, and t'was to die for!!

Maureen, I'm the last person to ask! I'm not a soup person, and chicken soup least of all! With or without barley.

Hi Maureen

I've seen it done both ways. My Scottish MIL adds the barley to the 'cleaned' broth about 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time. But while I lived there I found out that a lot of people add it at the start. They skimmed the scum and fat as in daisy's recipe and it seemed to be fine. Personally I do it MIL's way as I like to make the soup the day before and refrigerate it overnight in order to get every skerrick of fat out.

Traditionally in Scotland the meat is NOT added back into the soup, it is kept and used in another dish, more or less creating a clear chicken soup with leeks and any tiny bits of chicken which may have fallen off during cooking. And (hold on to your hat here)in the VERY olden days, prunes which had been soaked overnight were added with the barley towards the end. Yeeeeeeuch to the prunes :)).

Let me know if you'd like my very traditional (and simple) recipe. I'd be happy to post it.

Susan

Please do ....we love old and very traditional recipes!
Linda C

Susan, please do post it-we enjoyed it when we visited Scotland 2 years ago.

Here we go - you'll notice that it's very similiar to daisy's.

1 boiling fowl (with giblets)
1 bay leaf
1 lb leeks, slit, cleaned and cut into 1 inch pieces
4 pints stock or water (10 cups)
2 tablespoons barley or long grain rice
salt and pepper

Put bird, giblets, stock, bay leaf, leeks and plenty of seasoning into a large pan. Bring to the boil and skim. Reduce heat, cover pan and simmer for 2-3 hours until bird is tender.
Remove bird, giblets and bayleaf and skim any surface fat. Add barley or rice and simmer for another 30 minutes.

If you are *odd* LOL and want to add prunes, add 4oz of dried prunes which have soaked overnight when you add the barley or rice. Note that this is a British recipe and uses British measures.

Another Scottish recipe you might like for the depths of winter - Stovies

cold, diced or sliced, leftover roast beef or lamb
peeled and sliced potatoes (thick and thin slices)
leftover cold roast potatoes and gravy if you have any
sliced onion
stock
butter
salt and pepper

Melt a reasonable amount of butter over a medium heat and add the sliced raw potatoes and onion and salt and pepper. Cook without much attention for about 10 minutes ie leave it, stir, leave it, stir. You want bits to stick. Add the meat (also irregularly cut up), stock and any left over potatoes and garvy if you have them. Bring to the boil and turn down as low as you possibly can, stirring occasionally, more often towards the end. Cook until it's 'right', at least 45 minutes to an hour. It's right when it doesn't have very much liquid left in it. If you put it on a plate and tilt the plate it shouldn't move too much :)). The thicker slices of potato should be cooked but still a bit chunky for body. It's real comfort, warming food. It doesn't look much on the plate but 'meat and potatoes' men in particular love it.

Susan

Ah Susan, that takes me back cross the pond. It's the sort of 'dinner' my #1ds used to have at school, cept he always told me he had 'meat, potatoes and pudding'. I used to do a Monday night meal like that with the sunday 'joint'. That IS good winter cooking.

btw,my barley soup got an unappetizing grey but it was getting a good bit of iron I think from the cast iron leeching. It turned out to be more of a barley gruel with leek and chicken bits. Nonetheless, it was just right for a supper and there is a container left for a lunch next week.

I also wonder what the use of prunes was. Perhaps a touch of the Crusader with the fruit and meat combo??? Maureen

Thanks for posting this Susan-if we get our cold weather this week, might have to make some.
RL`