How to Prepare Czernina (Duck Blood Soup)

Czernina, or 'duck blood soup,' is a well-known dish hailing from Poland. Many Polish immigrants have fond memories of their parents or grandparents spending a whole day cooking this dish. Although delicious on its own, this soup had many other uses beyond the dinner table: almost black, czernina would be presented to a suitor that a Polish family hoped to reject.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• 1 live duck
• 1/2 cup of vinegar
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped
• Few sprigs of parsley
• 1 chopped onion
• Bouquet garni of four whole allspice, four whole cloves, and four whole peppercorns
• 2 cups of dried mixed fruit (prunes, raisins, apples, pears, etc.)
• 2 tablespoons of flour
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Raw potato dumplings

1. Chop off the head of a duck, and catch the blood in a glass bowl. Stir the vinegar into the blood. This will help to keep the blood from clotting. Set aside the mixture in the fridge to cool.
2. Pluck and dress the freshly beheaded duck. Place the carcass - including the neck, heart, liver, and gizzards - into a large pot. Cover the carcass with water, and bring it all to a boil.
3. Skim the stock, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the celery, parsley, onion, and the small spice bag. Cook slowly until the duck meat is done (this will take about two hours).
4. Remove the spice bag from the soup and discard. Remove the duck carcass, pull the meat off the bones and return the meat to the soup. Add the dried fruit to the whole mix and cook about another thirty minutes.
5. Blend the flour into the sour cream, then slowly mix into the blood and vinegar. Slowly add about one cup of the hot soup stock to the mix of blood, vinegar, flour, and sour cream. Stir well and add it all to the stock pot. Be careful; if you add the soup stock too quickly, the mixture will curdle.
6. Add the sugar, salt and more vinegar if necessary.
7. Drop the stiff potato dumpling dough, one spoonful at a time, into the boiling soup stock or salted water. As soon they float to the top, your czernina is ready to serve.