Peking Duck with Crispy Skin

One of the famous dish from Beijing is Peking Duck. Usually duck is fatty and it has a very long time of preprocess to make sure the skin is dry. Then season and grilled in an open pit with wood(date wood or pear wood), which will add a bit of refreshment for the duck.

Apparently we don’t have the condition to cook the same as restaurant, but still with enough patients, the duck could be as good as an average restaurant in Beijing! :D

Ingredients:

• 1 duck(the one I used is 2kg+)
• a bit of salt, honey, sugar to use for duck skin
• 2 full finger size spring onion
• 8 slice of ginger
• around 40 sichuan peper
• 2 anise
• 2 pieces of cinnamon stick
• some tooth picks or strings to seal the duck later

Steps:

• Clean the duck and rub with salt inside and outside. If there is lots of small feathers left, leave it for the next step to clean, that will be much easier
• Boil 1L water, then hold the duck from head or bottom, pass the boiled water through the skin. Do this step 3 times
• You will see the duck skin is much more tight than before. Now it is time to remove all the feathers
• Leave the duck to dry for at least 5hrs. If you have somewhere to hang the duck, use a string to tie on the neck or legs, hang it somewhere dry and better to be windy. I cannot hang it, so I used the beer bottle filled with water to hold the duck

• Prepare honey, sugar and warm water in 1:1:5 ratio, mix all of them in a small bowl. Keep brush the duck with the honey water every hour for 5–7hrs. If there is extra left, don’t throw away, we will need later
• You should see the duck skin feels very dry, thin and oily, this is important step to make it becomes crispy later on.
• Prepare seasoning for the duck: clean and cut apple to big cubes, cut spring onion big, slice ginger, and mix then with anise, sichuan pepper, cinnamon stick
• Stuff the duck with the seasonings, and use tooth pick to seal the open part, you can also use string to close it
• Pre-heat the oven to 160 degree
• Wrap the wings, leg tips and neck with aluminum paper, put the duck on a rack, put in the middle of oven, and put a deep tray under the duck to catch falling oil

• Grill the duck for 1.5hr, for every 30mins try to brush the duck with honey water and flip the side. Remember to keep check the color of the skin, if it is not very dark, increase the temperature to 200 degree in the last 15mins to get it brawn

• Now it is time to slice the duck. There are some video available on youtube, basically you need to remove the skin on the belly separately, cause that is the most crispy skin we could get, then find anywhere with meat and cut them off to small slices. (The bones left, I ate them directly cause I love bones. You can also add boiled water to cook with the bone, seasoned with salt, spring onion and coriander after, then it is a very light duck soup)
• Cut spring onions and cucumber into string, as much as you like
• Prepare the wrap pancake for the ducker while waiting for grill, see recipe here
• Prepare the peking duck sauce, if you can not find it directly, buy some soy bean paste fry with oil and a bit sugar, it should have similar taste.
• Then time to enjoy the hard work!