BUDA BITES

A few weeks ago while everyone else was eating turkey we ate wild duck. And as you can see in the photo on the left it was truly a wild duck, which someone had actually hunted and shot. The poor thing was even missing a leg. The duck weighed in at just under a kilo and we bought it on the lower level of the Central Market for astonishingly cheap (around 1,400 HUF). We didn’t plan on buying wild duck that day, and although we’ve cooked plenty of duck, neither of us had ever cooked wild duck before so we didn’t know where to start. After unwrapping the duck and seeing the pellet hole, I wasn’t feeling very prepared for cooking this duck, especially after reading this in one Internet recipe:

Most wild ducks are apt to have the flavor of fish and when on hands of unexperienced cooks are sometimes unpalatable on this account. Before roasting them, parboil them with a small peeled carrot put within each duck. This absorbs the unpleasant taste.

I didn’t like the idea of parboiling it, but I also didn’t want a duck that tasted like fish. But as usual, Hungarian cooks aren’t as fussy when it comes to recipes, so I checked one of my Hungarian cookbooks, Szakácskönyve (Cookbook) by Móra Ferencné and found a perfectly easy recipe. Unlike regular ducks which drip with fat when you roast them, wild ducks are lean and easily dry out, so don’t be stingy with the bacon fat.

Roasted Wild Duck (adapted from Móra Ferencné)

Wash the duck and sprinkle it with salt. Place in a roasting pan and cover with thin slices of szalonna (fatty bacon). Sprinkle thyme and pepper in the cavity of the duck and stuff with an onion half and an apple half. Slice the other half of the onion and add with a half cup of water to the pan. Roast at 350 F (180 C) for about an hour and fifteen minutes (depending on the size of your duck), adding more water as needed.

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I also made an orange sauce in the pan after the duck was finished cooking by deglazing the pan with the juice of one orange and then adding another chopped orange to the mix.

Published in 1949, the Szakácskönyve is a great basic Hungarian cookbook (if you can understand enough Hungarian to use it). It has recipes for any Hungarian dish or preparation that you’d possibly need. It also includes entertaining illustrations on how to set the tables for the different meals which comes in handy of you want to make sure you’re putting the sugar bowl and the butter container on exactly the right part of the breakfast table. Life in Móra’s house must have been nice, with a lunch table that included six separate glasses.

But like most books from that time it doesn’t include cooking temperatures or times, so you’ve got to have some idea what you’re doing. The recipes are always short, but often too short. Back then, it seems, readers did not have to have cooking techniques explained to them. Everyone knew how to make a roux and a butter cream without step-by-step instructions. Móra Ferencné (or Mrs. Frank Móra) was the wife of a famous Hungarian writer, known for his children’s books. Móra néni was such a perfectionist, according to her granddaughter who happens to live in the village where my husband grew up, that she’d throw any dish that didn’t turn out well onto the kitchen floor. Marta néni, the grand daughter, sweetly wanted to sign our copy of the book after finding out that we use it.

Our duck turned out great–we didn’t have to throw it on the floor–and it tasted nothing like fish. If you try this recipe yourself, remember to watch out for the pellet while you’re eating, especially if you’re feeding it to small children.