A rare upside to living in a pandemic has been that, thanks to all the mask-wearing and distancing, I’ve managed to avoid my usual onslaught of winter colds. This has radically altered my chicken soup habits.
Usually, I’d brew a pot of Jewish penicillin at the first sign of a scratchy throat. Full of garlic, celery, carrots and noodles simmered until so soft and slippery that chewing is hardly required; it’s pure childhood comfort for me. It’s seen my family through countless sniffles and bouts of bronchitis. Whenever I feel rotten, no other soup will do.
A recipe dating to at least the 16th century, it’s considered the national soup of Scotland, ladled up for St. Andrew’s Day, Hogmanay and Burns Night.
The most minimalist recipes call for a rich chicken broth thickly strewn with slices of leek and chunks of the stewed bird, without so much as a parsley sprig or carrot slice decorating the bowl. More elaborate incarnations include beef broth or meat, rice or oatmeal, and — a typically medieval addition — prunes or raisins.
Writing in the early 19th century, under the pen name Margaret Dods, Christian Isobel Johnstone has a cock-a-leekie recipe in “The Cook and Housewife’s Manual” that includes capon, beef shin, optional oatmeal and plenty of leeks, “boiled down into the soup till it becomes a green lubricious compound.”
But she skips the dried fruit, calling it obsolete.
In my version, I’ve kept the diced prunes, which add a lovely sweetness, but nixed the beef, which seems like overkill when you’ve already got a chicken in the pot.
And in lieu of rice or oatmeal, I opted for the barley suggested by Felicity Cloake in her recipe in The Guardian, which she prefers for its chewy texture and nutty flavor.
Breaking from tradition, however, I also stirred in garlic, celery and carrots. It nudged the broth ever so slightly closer to my beloved Jewish penicillin, but without obscuring the leeks, chicken and prunes. Warming, hearty and very satisfying, it is sure to cure whatever ails you, be it of body, or of mind.
