I don’t usually like to roast duck because it is time consuming to make good roast ducks. Of course, it is so easy to just season and dunk the duck into the oven. But to make a roasted duck crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside, it takes time. Elapse time, at least.
So I managed to short cut this, not a lot, but by half the preparation. Hm… something to shut about? It normally takes at least 12 hours to make a Peking duck, so I have shortened it to 5 hours. Of course, if you get the time to let the skin dry out a bit more, then the result dramatically improves.
Peking Duck
Ingredients
- 1 Duck
Coating sauce
- 1 Tbsp honey/molasses/treacle/golden syrup
- 2 Tbsp hot water
- 1/2 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp corn flour
Pancake
- 450 g plain flour
- 1.5 cup hot water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Dipping sauce
- 2 Tbsp Hoisin sauce
- 1 Tbsp peanut butter
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil
- 1 Tbsp Chinese wine
Equipment for roast duck
- A piece of string to hang duck with
- A brush to coat duck with
- An electric fan/refridgerator
- A piece of clean cloth
- Roasting pan
Instructions
Duck
- Pluck out all visible feathers.
- Bring to boil a big pot of water. Dip the duck in and remove after 30 seconds. Do this 4 times.
- Hang the duck by its neck in a place with draught. I just use a fan to blow at the duck, until the skin of the duck is dry and 'plasticky'. It took me 2 hours.
- Meanwhile, make the pancake (see below).
- Brush the duck with the coating sauce. Do this 5 times, with a little time in between for the sauce to be absorbed.
- Hang the duck to dry or put it uncovered in the fridge for another two hours.
- Preheat the oven to 230C.
- Put the duck in a roasting pan, breast side up and cook for 8 minutes.
- Turn the duck over using a towel (never never a tong or fork!) and roast for 8 minutes.
- Lower the heat to 180C, and roast breastside up for another 20 minutes.
- Lower the heat to 120C, roast for another 10 minutes.
- Turn the duck belly down/ Crank it up to 180C again for 10 minutes. Watch careful this time, as the duck will burn easily now.
- Rest the duck for 20 minutes before carving.
Carving the duck
- Cut the back of the duck first, skin it off horizontally. For the breast and legs, 15degrees (almost horizontal) into the duck.
- Diners help themselves to making their own peking duck wrappers.
Pancake
- Put the flour, salt in the blender, slowly add hot water.
- Leave to cool, covered for an hour.
- Divide dough into 40 equal pieces, the roll each to 5,mm (I used the tortilla press)
- Brush sesame oil on the surface on one piece, and stack another piece over it. Do this oil and stack 2 more times, stack 4 pieces of pancakes altogether.
- Roll out the stack. I used a tortilla press.
- Peel the layers apart.
- Pan fry with little or no sesame oil.
- Place them all stacked up in a large piece of foil, and then steam for 30 minutes.
