Czech Food, Savoured One Molecule at a Time – Pečená kachna s červeným zelím a bramborovými knedlíky
From 6.–9. October 2026, I travelled to Prague with a friend, who is also my former boss. (Prague is a city where I lived with my family from 2013 to 2016.) We stayed in the beautiful Vinohrady district, at the four-star apartment hotel Sibelius, which is run by a lovely Czech couple with close ties to Finland. I warmly recommend it: clean and quiet, with excellent transport links and services nearby. There’s even a Finnish sauna. Just as welcome was the lift, which is a rarity in the older apartment buildings of central Prague. It was made by Kone, a Finnish company and one of the world’s biggest lift manufacturers!
In four days we managed to see and experience a lot. We wandered the historic lanes of the Old Town, visited Prague Castle and Malá Strana, admired the views over the Vltava, and enjoyed a wonderful performance of the ballet Kafka: The Trial, which ended in a full fifteen minutes of thunderous applause. The days also made room for parks, the zoo, friendly chats with locals and tourists, shopping and, of course, Czech food. We walked 8–10 kilometres a day, which was a big deal for me, as I’m still recovering from a joint replacement operation a year ago. We got through it with sheer grit (sisu in Finnish), helped by the fact that we switched on the accessible routes option in our navigation app’s settings.
As a first-time visitor to Prague, my friend made a true gastronomic discovery, which she enjoyed, in her own words, “one molecule at a time”. She fell for crispy roast duck (pečená kachna), served with braised red cabbage (červené zelí) and potato dumplings (bramborové knedlíky). The first bite won her over completely that she wanted to eat the same dish every single day! To prevent that, on our last evening I took her to a Belgian brasserie, Bruxx. We ordered fresh oysters and a “fish platter for two”, which included two grilled sea bass, six roasted tiger prawns, eight small squid, a small pot of mussels Bruxx-style, roasted garlic potatoes and two steamed pak choi.
Back to the duck. Juicy duck with crispy skin, sweet-and-sour red cabbage and soft potato dumplings are part of the Czech home-cooking tradition. So I decided to dig out my Czech cookbooks and share this recipe on my blog too.
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| Adapted and expanded from: Vaněk, R. (2011). Poklady klasické české kuchyně. Prakul Production. |
Roast Duck with Red Cabbage and Potato Dumplings
Pečená kachna s červeným zelím a bramborovými knedlíky
Serves 4
Ingredients
Duck
- 1 whole duck. Fresh: 2–2.8 kg | Frozen: 1.5–2 kg.
(If you’re using frozen duck, allow one to two days for it to thaw in the fridge. Fresh is rather nicer, though, with better flavour and texture, and no waiting about.) - salt
- 1.5–2 tbsp whole caraway seeds (carum carvi). Do not use cumin (jeera)!
- 1 tbsp fine plain flour, for the gravy
- salt and pepper
- 400 ml water for the roasting tin, adding more if needed
Braised red cabbage
- 1 red cabbage, approx. 1 kg
- 1 onion
- 200 ml white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
- 6 tbsp caster sugar
- a pinch of ground caraway
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp duck fat from the roasting tin
Potato dumplings
Boil the potatoes about an hour before the duck is ready!
- 1 kg potatoes (choose a floury variety such as Maris Piper or King Edward)
- 300 g coarse wheat flour.
- Tip 1: If you only have regular plain flour, replace half of it with semolina to keep the dumplings light and airy. Tip 2: You may need a little more flour if the dough is too loose.
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbsp potato starch
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp duck fat from the roasting tin, for brushing the finished dumplings
Method
1. Preparing the duck
Preheat the oven to 160 °C (about 140 °C fan).
Remove any remaining feathers and the larger quills from the duck. Score the skin, but don’t cut into the meat, or the meat will dry out. Cut off the neck and wing tips and trim away any excess fat.
Don’t throw anything away, though: put the removed parts into the roasting tin along with the duck. If the heart and liver are included, add them to the tin as well. This makes the pan juices tastier.
Rub salt and caraway seeds thoroughly over the duck, inside and out.
Place the duck on the oven rack. Set the roasting tin underneath, with the neck and wing tips in it, and pour in some water. During roasting, duck fat will drip into the tin. The duck doesn’t need turning, because the rack allows it to cook and brown evenly on all sides.
Roast the duck at 160 °C for about 2–3 hours, depending on its size, or for noticeably longer at a lower temperature (the thermometer decides!). Baste the duck from time to time with the juices that collect in the tin. At the end, raise the temperature to about 200 °C so the duck gets a golden-brown, crispy skin. Note: there must be enough liquid in the tin (add more water if needed), otherwise the fat will smoke. The target temperature, measured in the thigh, is about 85–90 °C.
Lift the duck from the rack onto a chopping board to rest for 15–20 minutes, then carve it into portions.
2. Braised red cabbage
Total braising time is about 45–60 minutes, including the last 15–20 minutes after adding the flour.
Start the cabbage when the duck has been roasting for about half its time.
Halve the cabbage and cut it into four wedges. Remove the core and the outermost leaves.
Shred the cabbage as finely as possible.
Carefully take a couple of tablespoons of duck fat from the hot roasting tin and put it into a saucepan. Heat the fat, then add the chopped onion and the caraway.
Sauté the onion until it turns a lovely golden brown.
Add the shredded red cabbage to the onion. Season with salt, sugar and the white wine or apple cider vinegar.
Stir well, cover the pan with a lid and let it braise over a low heat.
When the cabbage is half-cooked, add a little water. Taste and add more seasoning if needed.
Sprinkle the flour over the cabbage, stir well and let it braise for another 15–20 minutes.
3. Gravy from the pan juices
Now the roasting tin is needed for the gravy.
Pour the excess fat into a clean glass jar, leaving the pan juices and one tablespoon of fat in the tin. Close the jar once the fat has cooled and store it in the fridge. The fat is wonderful for roast potatoes, for example.
Place the roasting tin on the hob. Sprinkle the flour into the pan juices and stir until the flour browns and sticks to the bottom.
Pour in about 200 ml of warm water and/or roasting juices. Scrape up the browned bits stuck to the bottom with a spatula.
Let the gravy simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. The gravy should be thin and pourable, so add more roasting juices or water if needed.
Taste and season with salt and/or pepper.
Strain the finished gravy into a warmed gravy boat.
4. Potato dumplings
Boil the potatoes in their skins in a separate pan. Don’t boil them too soft, or the dough will be too loose.
Let the potatoes cool, then peel and grate them.
At this point, put a large pan of well-salted water on to boil for the dumplings.
Add the potato starch, flour, eggs and salt to the grated potato. Mix quickly into an even dough.
Quickly shape the dough into oblong dumplings about 5 cm thick.
Swirl the boiling water into a whirlpool and put the dumplings straight into the water.
The dumplings will sink to the bottom at first, so make sure they don’t stick to the base of the pan. Gently loosen them if necessary. Once the water returns to the boil, lower the heat.
Don’t take the dumplings out as soon as they float to the surface (these aren’t Italian gnocchi!). Let them float over a low heat (in simmering, not violently boiling, water) for about 15–20 minutes. You can cut one dumpling open to test whether it’s cooked. If you find raw flour or potato inside, cook them for longer.
Lift the cooked dumplings into a bowl with a slotted spoon. Prick them with a fork or cocktail stick so the steam can escape and they don’t collapse. Brush the dumplings with melted duck fat. This keeps the surface from drying out and hardening, so they stay soft and juicy.
Just before serving, cut the dumplings into slices about 1–1.5 cm thick with a sharp knife or a piece of thread.
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| The original recipe is a lovely classic, but it leaves some steps open to interpretation, so I filled in the details (temperatures, timings and the dumpling method) to make it easier to recreate at home. |