German Braised Duck Niederwald
This recipe is adapted from the Derrydale Game Cookbook by L.P. De Gouy (my sister designed the current edition), and it is a classic German pot roast done with duck. You could also use goose here, too, especially Canada or snow goose. I include it for those who suffer from cold winters, prefer the expected to the unexpected, or just want something homey to eat on a Sunday evening. It also reheats well for lunches the following week.
Serves 4-6
2 large ducks (mallard, pintail, gadwall) or 4 small ones (shoveller, wigeon, teal) or 1 domestic duck
1/4 pound thinly sliced ham such as prosciutto or Serrano
1/2 pound sauerkraut
3-4 duck or goose sausages (or any German pork sausage)
1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced thickly
1 medium onion, sliced thickly into half-moons
1 bay leaf
2 cloves
4-5 ground juniper berries
1 wineglass of Riesling or another German white wine
Duck or chicken stock
Salt and fresh ground pepper
- Joint the ducks. You want legs, wings and breasts separate. Reserve the carcass for stock. On a domestic duck, trim as much fat as you can without destroying the skin.
- Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
- In a pan, sear the duck pieces until well browned. If you start skin side down and use medium-high heat, you should not need extra fat or oil, unless your ducks are skinny. Use some butter or lard if you need it.
- Take a Dutch oven or an earthenware pot with a lid and line the bottom with the thin slices of ham.
- Spread around the sauerkraut over the ham to make a little nest. Sprinkle this sauerkraut nest with the bay leaf, the cloves and the juniper berries.
- Arrange the onion slices over the sauerkraut. Arrange the duck (skin side up), carrot chunks and sausages over them. The duck should be at the top of the heap, everything else should be nestled into the kraut. Slice the sausages in half if you need to make room. Everything should be snug but not packed in.
- In the pan you seared the ducks in, pour the wine in and deglaze with a wooden spoon. Pour the wine into the Dutch oven.
- If the wine does not come up to the level of the meat – you do NOT want it covering, just at the level of the duck skin – pour in some duck or chicken stock until you get to that level. Sprinkle everything with salt, cover, and place in the oven for 3 hours.
- Check after three hours. You want the duck to be close to falling off the bone. Once you have reached this happy state, put the Dutch oven back into the oven – uncovered this time – turn up the heat to 400 degrees and cook for another 15 minutes. This is to crisp the duck skin.
- This dish goes best with either mashed potatoes or German potato pancakes.
