Name: Italian Clay Pot Duck Soup
Yield: Serves 4 to 6
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: ⅓ cup dry white wine; 1½ teaspoons tomato paste, canned or homemade; 12 ounces slightly stale whole-wheat or whole-grain bread, cut into ½-inch thick, 3- by 1½-inch slices; 2 quarts chicken stock, heated; 2 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated (about ½ cup); Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 1 pair of large duck legs (about 1 pound), trimmed of excess fat and skin; 5 tablespoons unsalted butter; ¼ cup finely diced carrot; ⅓ cup finely diced celery; 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley; ¼ cup finely diced onion

Preparation info

Serves
4 to 6

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking

By Paula Wolfert

Published 2009

About

This is a hearty soup called sopa coada (“smothering soup”) from the Treviso region north of Venice. It is traditionally cooked in a clay pot glazed on all sides except the bottom. Italian home cooks use pigeon, squab, or wild ducks shot in the marshes as so beautifully described in Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees.

I’ve made this dish many times with a pair of legs from a domestic duck and have al