Czarnina – Duck Blood Soup (With or Without the Blood)

Witamy!

Czarnina is a Polish comfort soup that originated decades ago on Polish farms as a way to use up every part of a slaughtered duck or goose. It’s a rural dish. It was brought over by early immigrants and is now revered by those who remember Czarnina at their Babcia’s kitchen table.  Today, I believe that this dish is one of those legends that gets bigger with age, but it also fades with age when trying to remember how this soup actually tasted.  Duck blood??  Really?  

Even though I can’t understand the pleasure from sipping the blood of a duck, even cooked, there must be a reason why duck’s blood is so hard to find these days. I called our favorite butcher and was told that fresh ducks were readily available, but only cleaned and dressed.  With all the regulations on commercial food handling, I’m guessing that not many will guarantee the freshness and safety of the blood.  I suppose one could get fresh blood directly from a farmer...if one knew a farmer.

But today you won’t need that farmer  to buy fresh duck blood!!

https://www.buffalofoods.com/ecommerce/duck-soup-kit.html

This link goes to a shop just outside of Buffalo, NY that sells a kit for making Czarnina. It includes the duck, 2 pints of freshy duck blood, the noodles, and more.  It’s not cheap because you are required to have the kit shipped to you by air to maintain the freshness of the blood.  But it’s real -- I actually called them today to verify.

But if you’re like me and can’t excited about the real thing, here is a recipe for a no-blood version, It still has a lot of flavor, but avoiding the blood is a better way to go, as far as I’m concerned.  It gets a lot of flavor from fresh or smoked neck bones, either pork or some variety of fowl – whatever you can get.  Try it and let us know how it worked. 

Mock Duck Blood Soup

Serves 8

  3 pounds meaty fresh or smoked neck bones, pork, turkey, duck, etc.

1 pound dried prunes, pitted

1 stalk celery

1 sprig parsley

1 bay leaf

5 whole allspice

2 whole cloves

¼ cup raisins

1 small tart apple, chopped

1/4 cup vinegar or lemon juice

½ to 1 tablespoon sugar

2 cups light cream

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper to taste

1.     
 If using fresh neck bones, blanch, drain and rinse them.  Place blanched or smoked neck bones in a large pot or Dutch oven. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam that rises to the top.

2.     While the bones are coming to a boil, make a small bag from cheese cloth (or a clean cotton hankie) and place in it the celery, parsley, allspice and cloves.  Add it to the soup pot, reduce heat, add vinegar and bay leaf and simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour.

3.     Add prunes and season slowly with sugar, salt and pepper (watch the salt if using smoked neck bones).  Bring back to a boil, reduce heat and simmer slowly, partially covered, for 1 hour or until meat falls off the bone.

4.     Taste again and adjust the seasonings, plus vinegar or lemon juice, to your own palate.  Add the seasonings slowly, and keep tasting.  The broth should have a slightly sweet tone from the plums and sugar, but with a slight and soft contrasting tartness from the vinegar or lemon juice.  Remove meat from bones and return to pot.

5.     Turn off the heat, cool soup and then refrigerate until fat is congealed on top for easy skimming and removal. 

6.     Just before serving, “cream” the cold soup by adding a few ladles of cold soup into a medium bowl and slowly whisking in the flour and cream; and whisking (or blending) until very smooth and all the flour lumps are gone.  Pour this mixture back into the soup pot and heat gently until soup is thickened and any raw flour taste is cooked out.

      Serve over noodles, if desired.   Smacznego!