Each nation is proud of some of its signature dish. And in China, it is the kaoya beijin, or Peking duck. The dish is very ancient. The first recipe he wrote down dates back to 1330 and is in the book of the most important nutrition principles by the court nutritionist Hu Xihui. A dish originally from Shandong province has become very popular in the imperial dynasty of Yuan. Therefore, it spread throughout the Middle Kingdom under the name "Peking duck." Thanks to Chinese emigrants, the dish has become popular in other countries. And, of course, it is a gastronomic “calling card” of the capital. In China, there is even a saying: "You were not in Beijing if you did not see the Great Wall and did not try the duck."
It should immediately be said that it is almost impossible to cook an authentic dish at home. And not because the recipe is kept secret or it is difficult to get hua jie pepper or Hoi Sin sauce. It’s just that not every Slavic cuisine has special bellows for blowing the skin (thanks to them, the skin is separated from the meat and acquires a characteristic crunch). An authentic dish is prepared in a special oven on cherry wood. And the whole culinary process takes at least two days. In this article, we will give two recipes: simplified, fast, and most adapted to the realities of urban cuisine; and complicated if you are uncompromisingly determined to make a real dish.
The basic principles of the culinary process
If you have never tried a Peking duck and don’t know what it is, we’ll briefly talk about it. The dish is a carcass grated by honey, which, when served, is cut into thin slices. An important condition is the presence of the skin - caramelized, sweet, glossy in appearance. It should crunch appetizingly and be slightly separated from the meat. What about the flesh? This is just something magical, culinary miracle, the taste of which is beyond words. Therefore, the Peking duck became famous throughout the world. So, the basic principles of cooking this dish.
- Day One: carcass cutting, thorough removal of feather residues, pickling, skin inflation.
- Second day: syrup coating, varnishing.
- In the end: smoking, baking, dousing with hot oil.
Well, if you still have no desire to "spit" on this Beijing delicacy and just cook dumplings, let's go ahead. Let's start with a complicated recipe. And then we'll see how to simplify it.
Peking duck. The classic recipe. First day
From the gutted carcass of a Peking duck (in comparison with European relatives, it has thinner skin), all remaining feathers, as well as fat, should be carefully removed. In Chinese cuisine, it all starts with spices. We need: cinnamon, fennel, star anise, cloves and hua jie pepper. The whole mixture is a tablespoon. Grind spices and sift. We rub another small, 1 cm, ginger root. Pass through the press two cloves of garlic. Add to the mixture half a tablespoon of salt and two - Hoi Sin sauce. With this marinade, generously lubricate the duck from the inside. Sew the abdomen so that the sauce does not leak. We make a small hole in the skin above the goiter of the bird. The recipe for making Peking duck at home allows you to use ... a bicycle pump. Insert the tip into the hole and gently pump air, patting the skin to push the vesicles further, across the entire breast. Then we turn the carcass, pierce the skin near the tail. We perform the same operation with inflating the skin. Air should separate it from the meat.
External pickling
We trim the wings. We put a pot with 2 liters of water on the fire. Hang a duck above her. Throw into the water:
- 80 g of salt
- half a tablespoon of cloves,
- for a whole spoon - hua jie, star anise and fennel.
Add a glass of soy sauce.
We are waiting for this marinade to boil. Take a soup ladle and scald a Peking duck. The classic recipe tells us to work until the skin on the carcass turns white. When all the liquid drains, we outweigh the duck in a cool place. Leave for the night. It’s good if the duck’s neck is preserved. After all, we need to hang it with its paws down. And the skin after blowing and scalding becomes very soft, and the carcass can come off. In China, a duck is wrapped around its neck with a hook.
Second day. Glazing
Take a glass of granulated sugar and soy sauce, boil the syrup. It should be thick enough, almost like caramel. Brush the whole carcass with this syrup. In the original recipe, a Peking duck in soy sauce should be aged for three days. To dry the skin, a wand is inserted “under the arms” - between the wings. In principle, the meat should not foul, because we marinated it from the inside, doused it with brine from the outside, and covered it with soy caramel shell. Cellar, where the temperature is +5 and there is an influx of fresh air - ideal. There is no airflow in the refrigerator (unless you put a fan inside). It is best to cook the duck in spring or autumn when the weather is favorable. Three days later, cut the tail and put the tray under the carcass so that there was a place where the marinade would flow.
Roasting
Peking classic duck meat is described as “sweet with smoke”. How to achieve such an effect? Since we cannot succeed in lighting a stove on cherry wood, we use this technique.
- Pour into a metal bowl: sugar, ash, tea and rice grains.
- From above we lay several smoldering coals for a hookah.
- Place the bowl in the oven, turned on 160 degrees.
Around the carcass you need to create a spacious "dome" from a double folded foil. The bird should not touch any hot objects inside the oven. When you see that the duck has inflated (it is bursting with hot air inflated by the pump), remove the bird from the oven. Lubricate it again with syrup made from honey and soy sauce (1: 1 ratio). Return to the oven by slightly increasing the temperature.
Now heat a whole bottle of vegetable oil in a saucepan. Hold the carcass over the container by the hook. Scoop the hot oil with a ladle and pour over the carcass. Caramelization of sugars occurs - the skin turns red before the eyes, becomes shiny and glazed.
Serving dishes
The duck should be as hot as possible. Therefore, all products accompanying the dish should have already been cooked by that time. These are Mandarin pancakes, young stalks of leek, sliced with tassels, and two obligatory sauces - Hoi Sin and sweet, which is made from burdock. Freshly sliced cucumbers can also be served with the dish. How to eat a Peking duck? When feeding, the bird is cut along the “waist” into thin strips. The meat is carefully removed from the legs from the bone. We use a very sharp knife. After all, we need not shred, but cut the baked and very fragile skin. The eater wraps this piece of meat with peel in a Mandarin pancake, which is previously lubricated with sauces using an onion “tassel”. Decency allows gravy to be applied to the duck, and the cake is left fresh. So delicious too. The tradition obliges to serve soup cooked from Peking cabbage and those parts of the duck that were cut during its preparation after the dish.
Mandarin crepes: recipe
If you are tired of fussing around a bird, you can get by with purchased pita bread. Especially similar to Peking duck cakes is the Azerbaijani bread of the juh. But for especially pedantic natures who want to stick to the Chinese recipe to the smallest detail, we will tell you how to bake Mandarin pancakes. Moreover, this process is simple and will take you only a few minutes. We’ll drive an egg into a bowl, add a glass of water and begin to add flour, constantly kneading the mass. Neither sugar, nor salt, nor even soda, need to be added. The cakes should be as thin as pancakes. Knead a very liquid dough. Bake pancakes in a dry pan. The main thing here is not to let you get very red. Then the cakes will lose flexibility, and you will not wrap anything in them.
Peking duck: a quick recipe. The first day
A unique dark red color, a crusty crust that crumbles in the mouth, and underneath is tender pink meat ... That is exactly what the Beijing duck should be. How to achieve this perfection, and in record time? We will try to manage in two days. We simplify the process:
- We take the carcass of a duck weighing at least two kilograms, preferably a Beijing breed. Cut off the extreme phalanges of the wings, remove fat.
- In a bowl, mix a tablespoon of sugar syrup and soy sauce. Add a mixture of Chinese spices “5 spices” (read the label: sometimes ginger is also added to the packet - then you do not need to grate it separately). Squeeze out two cloves of garlic. Three slice of ginger. Add a teaspoon of salt and rice vinegar.
- We rub the carcass with this marinade both outside and inside, set the wire rack on the baking sheet, and the duck on it. Mix a teaspoon of salt and starch, rub into the skin of a bird. Remove the baking sheet in a cool and dry place.
Second day
Boil five liters of water. Move the duck into the sink. Scalp her from all sides. We put on a special stretch so that the carcass is in the oven in an upright position, legs down. If there is no such device, take a bottle with a stopper, pour water there. Cork, plant a Peking duck on the neck. Preheat the oven to 230 degrees. We bake it for about an hour. Then you need to reduce the heat to 150 degrees. We continue to bake for another half hour. We take out the finished carcass, cover it with foil and let it rest for about ten minutes before cutting it into pieces.
The recipe is medium difficulty. The first day
This instruction can be called the “golden mean” between the simple and classic methods of making Peking duck. We cut the carcass, remove excess fat from the tail and neck. Cut off the phalanx of the wings. We take the duck by the neck, hold over the sink and pour boiling water from the kettle until the skin turns white. Rub the carcass inside and out with rice wine or sherry. After 10 minutes, we will do the same procedure, but with sea salt. Take a deep bowl, put a bottle of water in it. We put a carcass on it vertically. We put the structure in a cold, well-ventilated place for 12 hours. In the evening, grease the carcass with honey from the outside (4 tablespoons), trying to distribute it evenly. Hide in the cold for another 12 hours.
Second day
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Pour a glass of water into a deep pan, place the grate on top so that the liquid does not touch it. We lay the carcass upside down, and wrap the whole structure with foil. Put in the oven for an hour. Mix in a tablespoon:
- sesame oil
- grated ginger
- black pepper.
Dilute with soy sauce so that the mass remains viscous. Remove the foil, grease the duck. We increase the temperature in the oven to 260 C. We remove the water tray. Bake the bird on the wire rack for 25 minutes. Turn off the fire. Mix 2 tablespoons of honey and one - soy sauce. Lubricate the whole carcass. Turn on the grill. Place the carcass in the lower compartment of the oven. Cook for 5-10 minutes.
Peking duck fillet cooked according to this recipe remains tender, and the crust remains crispy.