Valentine Warner's duck soup with a Christmas kick recipe

Details

• Cuisine: English
• Recipe Type: Soup
• Difficulty: Easy
• Preparation Time: 20 mins
• Cooking Time: 150 mins
• Serves: 4

Step-by-step

1. Break up the duck carcase into about 3 pieces and put it, along with any remaining bones from the legs, into a saucepan that when filled with water will generously cover the duck.
2. Split the onions in half leaving the brown skins on and add them to the pot. Drop in the parsley stalks, the porcini mushrooms, the garlic, the thyme, the bay leaves and 5 or 6 peppercorns.
3. Put the pan over the heat and bring it up to barely even a simmer - stocks that are allowed to boil too fast subsequently becoming murky & greasy. Your stock should in effect just tremble.
4. Put the lid on, checking after 5 minutes that the heat doesn’t rise up to a simmer, and let the stock tremble for 2 hours. Whilst simmering occasionally, skim any scum from the top. Taste it now without salt - it should still have a strong essence of duck to it.
5. Strain the stock very carefully through a colander and then again through a sieve.
6. Pour the stock back into the pan and add the carrots and celery. Again bring up to a wobble and season generously with salt until a really good ducky taste is found.
7. Cook for 8-10 or until the vegetables are tender.
8. Now add the beans, pearl barley and the shredded chard, and cook for a further 5 minutes or until the chard is tender.
9. Add the sherry with any reserved duck meat and cook for 1 or 2 minutes more, before checking the seasoning for the last time.
10. Spoon into bowls and serve with a good loaf of sourdough bread. Finely grated parmesan & good olive oil on top can be a wonderful addition to the soup.