(Oldstuff) Chinese Style Roast Duck
Not exactly the same as you'd get in a "normal" (e.g. comodotised!) Chinese restaurant, b ut something vaguely like the duck you get from Chinatown. Unlike the normal Chinese resta urant duck, this duck isn't deep fried, and is cooked at high temperatures to get rid of as much fat as possible. Still, this dish is not ideal if you are on a diet - duck is naturall y very fatty. Recipe care of my father who perfected this (after a couple of attempts).
Serves: 2 or 3 as a main course, or 5 or 6 as a starter.
Ingredients:
- A whole fresh Duck, (giblets removed!)
- Chinese Pancakes
- 1 large whole cucumber
- 8 spring onions
- Hoi Sin sauce. (I would strongly recommend Sharwood's)
- 2x tablespoons Syrup
- 1x tablespoons honey
- 1.5 x tablespoons Five Spice powder
- 1x teaspoon vinegar
- 1x teaspoon lemon juice
Method:
The day before you wish to eat, mix the syrup, honey, 5-spice, vinegar and lemon and stir thoroughly - you should be left with a kind of runny paste. If the paste is powdery or not sufficiently runny, then add a little water.
Anyway, unpack the duck, place on a wire mesh in a baking tray and brush thoroughly with the paste. Leave to stand overnight, but cover with paste every couple of hours before you cook.
Duck takes surprisingly long to cook, so leave yourself 2 to 2.5 hours preparation and co oking time. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4. Re-coat the duck with the paste and then plac e the duck (with the baking tray ;) near the top of the oven.
After half an hour, remove the duck, recoat and turn over.
After another half an hour, remove the duck, recoat and turn over.
Remove duck an coat again, now turn the oven up to gas mark 7 for "as long as necessary". Basically you're trying to crisp the duck up and lose as much fat as possible. Depending on the duck, this stage can take from between 20 to 45 minutes! I just keep removing the du ck every 10 minutes and piercing the skin with a skewer, if fat runs out then it's no cooked yet....You also need to bare in mind that the duck skin will crisp when it's cooling outsid e of the oven.
Whilst the duck is cooking, you can prepare the onions and cucumber. I'm sure everyone h as had this dish in a Chinese restaurant, so I won't labour the point. Basically, you need to chop the spring onions into 3 to 4 inch sections then chop lengthways a few times until y ou're left with fairly thin slices of onion. Skin the cucumber, chop off the ends. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways and remove the wet/seedy centre of the cucumber with a teaspoon , discard the centre. Now slice the remaining cucumber into 3 to 4 inch long segments, abou t 3 or 4 millimetres thick.
Once the duck has cooled for 15 minutes, cut off the meat and remove bones.. Remove any fatty sections, though try to keep as much skin as possible. Once the meat is removed, plac e on a chopping board and chop into small chunks.
To eat, place a small spread of the Hoi Sin sauce on the pancake, add spring onion, cucum ber and duck then roll and consume. Repeat as necessary ;) For an authentic feel, consume with Tsing Tao :)