Cock-A-Leekie Soup
Photo: Sweetwatercooks
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Cock-a-leekie is a very traditional Scottish fall or winter soup dating back as far as the 15th and 16th centuries. I've stayed close to tradition with these three exceptions:
* 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.