Global warming and Cock-a-Leekie soup
Forter Castle, restored by Robert Pooley
A nice place to eat Cock-a-Leekie soup.
The Arctic is back to its ice-building ways, and cold Arctic air has flowed south over Oregon, so it seemed a good time to cook Cock-a-Leekie soup.
I put my free-range chicken with water in a pot, brought it to a boil, skimmed the surface clean, added peppercorns (not too many) and salt and simmered for an hour; added clean and chopped leeks for another half hour and prunes for the last 15 minutes. (I was a bit vague about all these times.) I took the meat off the bone - it was so tender it fell off - and put the meat back in the broth. Since I wanted the soup to sparkle I added a little white wine. Parsley is supposed to be the garnish, but yogurt had to substitute. Very nice on a snowy, frosty night, and a good stand-by for lunch on an icy day.