PEKING DUCK
4 min readIf you are willing to embark on this journey with me，clear your diary for the next few days，as we are about to spend them together This is without a doubt the ardest recipe I have ever encountered-a process that requires much TLC and close attention i would say that 90 per cent of chinese restaurants nowadays do you if you attempt this at home.I researched this dish for three years before x not give this dish the proper treatment，so the odds are strongly stacked against putting it on the menu，trying 60 different varieties of duck and eating thousands of dishes from restaurants the world over，and the da dong restaurant in Beijing came out top in coming as close to perfection in achieving a crispy，glass-like skin And the skin really is the most important part of this dish；at banquets，it is not uncommon to only eat the skin and discard the rest of the bird.At the restaurant however，we have now managed，with our state-of-the art oven，to retain a pink flesh within that wondrously crispy，lacquered exterior.We cook the duck over a range of six different temperatures during a 35-minute process，starting from 120 ℃ and finishing at 220-not an option offered by most domestic ovens，unfortunately We serve our Peking ducks as a nine-course tasting menu where we use as much of the duck as possible.Marco Pierre White states in his book White Heat that the best food is a collection of lots oflittle things done perfectly，and this dish really is that mantra personified；try to cut corners at any one of the stages of the process and the end result will suffer
Serves 6-8
INGREDIENTS
1 frozen Silver Hill duck，about 2.6kg
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons Five-spice Salt
For the maltose syrup
1.5 litres water
2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine
2 tablespoons Chinese red vinegar
3 tablespoons maltose
To serve
Potato puri or 12 Chinese pancakes.steamed
1 bunch of spring onions，finely sliced
1 cucumber，finely sliced
Five-spice Salt
hoisin or plum sauc
1.On day 1，defrost the duck and rinse well with cold water
2.USing an electric bike pump，insert the nib of the pump just under the skin，entering from the bottom of the belly.When done correctly the entire bird will begin to inflate as the air travels in between the flesh and skin of the duck
3.Season the inside of the bird with the sugar and Five-spice Salt
4.Insert a hook in the back of the duck and hang it up over the draining board in the kitchen to dry for 10 minutes
5. Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil. With the duck held over the pan, use a large ladle or small saucepan to pour the boiling water all over the skin of the duck, letting it fall back into the pan Continue pouring the water over the duck until every inch of skin has had a good dousing you will see the skin tighten up and change colour slightly.
6. Hang the duck in a cool, dry place for 30 minutes
7. For the maltose syrup, bring all the ingredients to the boil in a large pan
8. Pour the boiling syrup repeatedly over the skin of the duck as you did with the boiling water in tep 5
9. Hang the duck in a cool, dry place for 12-24 hours to dry out, placing an electric fan in front of the bird to accelerate the process
10. On day 2, check the duck to see if it is ready for roasting -the skin should be completely dry to the touch. If so, preheat the oven to 120 C, Gas Mark 1 /2
11. The idea is to hang the duck by the hook from the top shelf in the oven to roast, with the doorslightly ajar, for 1 hour. However, it is probable that your oven isnt large enough to hold a whole hanging duck, which is the very reason why this dish is not designed for home preparation. In this case, aim to get the back skin to restaurant quality, which is a lot easier to bring to glass-like perfection anyway and just accept that, without the duck being hung in the oven, the breast skin will be soft. Place the bird breast-side down on a rack set over a roasting tray and roast as above The back skin will be more than enough to wow your guests without them knowing that the skin from the breast meat is missing
12. Turn up the oven to 200C, Gas Mark 6, and roast for a further 15 minutes with the oven door very slightly ajar to allow any condensation to escape
13. Remove the duck from the oven and immediately start taking off the hard, lacquered skin, as the longer you leave it attached the more likely the steam generated from the flesh will soften it into a limp, soft mes
14. Remove the duck meat from the carcass and thinly slice then serve with the skin and the various accompaniments
CHEF S TIP
I have not specified the brand of the duck here for marketing purposes but only because during the three years of research we did for this dish, this was the one that gave us the best results
