Peking Duck At Home: Step By Step Recipes With Photos

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

Delicious and juicy Peking duck at home

It is good that holidays are a frequent occurrence in our life. And in honor of special events, we try to serve something unusual to the table, confirming our culinary abilities. And very often a festive dinner is decorated with poultry dishes. We suggest you learn how to cook Peking duck - a traditional Asian dish that is rapidly gaining popularity in Western countries.

Content

• 1 What is a Peking duck like?
• 2 Products for cooking

• 3 Step by step recipes

  • 3.1 Traditional Oven Recipe
  • 3.2 With apples
  • 3.3 With oranges
  • 3.4 In a multicooker
• 4 Video: Cooking Peking Duck

What is a Peking duck like?

The recipe for this dish can be safely called ancient. No joke, it has been known since 1330, the reign of the Chinese Yuan dynasty, - it was then that Hu Xihui, an imperial physician, published a special method of cooking duck in his professional work "The Most Important Principles of Nutrition."

Presumably the origin of the dish is the Chinese province of Shandong. From there, it got to the tables of the Yuan court in the capital of China, Beijing, earned great popularity and eventually became known outside the country under this name.

Peking duck is cut into pieces before serving

Peking duck is not just roasted duck meat with spices. The peculiarity of cooking is that you will need a lot of time and effort. But all the costs will pay off in full.

There are two common ways to cook Peking duck that are traditionally used by modern chefs.

1. The duck is hung over the hearth and fried in this state over the fire. Firewood must be from fruit trees, more often pear, date or peach. During the frying process, the skins acquire a reddish color and shine, covered with a crispy crust. The meat is saturated with a fruity aroma, it becomes tender and soft.
2. The duck is roasted in a closed oven, which is very hot at the beginning of the process. And over time, it gradually decreases. This method allows you to get crispy skin and slightly fatty meat with a juicy taste without sugary.

It is unlikely that you can cook a real Peking duck at home. A traditional recipe requires a special oven and tools, so the recipes we offer are adapted to the average hostesses' capabilities. You probably have an oven or slow cooker, and you can easily scald and dry a bird's carcass in your own kitchen.

Products for cooking

The peculiarity of Asian cuisine is its pungency and spicy aroma. This also applies to the Peking duck. A lot of spices and special sauces are used in its preparation. The traditional recipe includes, in addition to the duck carcass, the following ingredients:

• dry sherry or rice wine;
• honey;
• salt (necessarily sea salt!);
• Sesame oil;
• ginger root (or dried ginger powder);
• soy sauce;
• star anise.

It is customary to serve Peking duck on thin dough pancakes, for which you need:

• 1 cup flour;
• 2/3 glass of water and the same amount of milk;
• 1 egg;
• 2 tablespoons of oil.

Besides, you definitely need the Hoi-sin sauce. It is very difficult to make it at home, so try to get it from a supermarket or specialty store.

Hoi-hsing sauce - a must-have for Peking duck

But if you're not afraid to experiment, you can try making such a sauce yourself. For him you will need:

• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• Chinese seasoning "5 spices";
• 1 teaspoon each hot chili pepper, wine vinegar and garlic powder;
• salt.

Mix foods and boil them. Better yet, buy ready-made Hoi-sin sauce to make the dish truly traditional.

You will also need green onions and fresh cucumbers to decorate the dish before serving. It looks like this: the finished duck is butchered (Chinese cooks traditionally cut 108 pieces), the meat is placed on pancakes, greased with Hoi-sin sauce. Next you need to put a few pieces of cucumber, onion feathers, and roll the pancake into a tube.

Professional Chinese pokara, when cutting Peking duck, cut it into 108 pieces

Step by step recipes

We offer you several simplified recipes. We recommend choosing a Peking duck carcass for cooking: it is not very oily, unlike others, and besides, it has a thin skin. You also need to consider that cooking Peking duck will take you more than a day.

Traditional recipe for cooking in the oven

For this dish you will need:

• 1 medium-sized duck carcass;
• 2 liters of water;
• 1 piece of ginger root
• 60 ml of rice wine (or sherry);
• 60 ml soy sauce;
• 1 tablespoon of five spice;
• 3 tablespoons of honey;
• 2 star anise stars;
• 1 pinch of salt.

Duck carcass, thoroughly gutted, rinse well and dry with a towel or napkin. Trim excess fat - most of all around the neck and tail. Place the carcass on a wire rack with a tray.

Prepare the duck carcass and place on the wire rack

Pour water into a saucepan to make the marinade. Cut the ginger root into slices and place in a saucepan along with honey, rice wine, soy sauce, star anise stars, and 5 spices. Boil and cook for no more than 5 minutes so that the aroma of the food does not go away with the steam.

Prepare the marinade

Scald the marinade on each side of the duck. In this case, the skin should shrink slightly and darken.

Scald the carcass with marinade on all sides

Take a clean, dry saucepan. Place a bottle filled with water in it.

Place a water bottle in the pot

Place the duck vertically on the bottle. Put the resulting structure in the refrigerator, where it should spend at least a day. If you do not have a suitable bottle or there is not enough space in the refrigerator, place the carcass on the wire rack so that air has even access to all parts of the duck.

Place a duck on the bottle so that it stands upright

The next day, remove the carcass from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour. Turn on the oven in advance: by the time the duck gets into it, the temperature should be 200 degrees.

Rub the duck with salt and carefully place it on a wire shelf with a tray, breast side up. Send to the oven and wait until it is ready. When the skin is browned, pierce the carcass with a knitting needle: if the juice that flows out is completely transparent, then the dish is ready. It usually takes about an hour and a half to bake. Get the duck out of the oven, let it rest for 40 minutes, cut the meat into slices and serve it to the guests as we described above!

One of the traditional ways to serve Peking duck is in pancakes or pita bread, with cucumber and green onions

This recipe is rather simplified, you can easily cope with it. For comparison, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the method of cooking Peking duck in the oven, as close as possible to the traditional one. You will see how much more difficult it is for Chinese chefs to manipulate a bird carcass.

Duck weighing about 2.5 kg is rubbed with salt and left at least overnight so that it is well salted. The next morning, the carcass is given a hot bath: it is repeatedly dipped in boiling water or poured from a kettle. Then leave to dry.

After that, the duck carcass must be "blown". A special pump is usually used for this, but it can be replaced with a syringe with a thick needle. The skin is pierced and air is forced under it - so the skin will move away from the meat. Rub the processed carcass with honey and leave to infuse for an hour.

A marinade is prepared from soy sauce, sesame oil and honey. They need to coat the duck inside and out. And this is done every half hour for 4 hours, that is, 8 times.

For baking, you can do without a bottle of water. To do this, in the oven, you need to make the following design: on a baking sheet in which water is poured, install a greased grate on which to put the duck. The temperature in the oven should be around 250 degrees. The duck is fried for 40 minutes, after which you need to lower the temperature to 160 degrees and leave for another 60 minutes. After that, the duck is turned over and baked for another 30 minutes.

With apples

For this recipe, you will need the same products as in the previous paragraph, just buy additional apples - Antonovka or Semerenko, these sour varieties are great for duck meat. Well, the cooking method will differ slightly.

Prepare the duck: cut the legs and tips of the wings, if any (you cannot find such full-size carcasses in stores - only in the market from private traders).

Prepare a duck carcass

Be sure to remove fat from the tail, neck and breast: excess can ruin the dish.

Remove excess fat

Scald the carcass with the marinade as in the first recipe and pat dry with a towel. Place on a jar or bottle, spread with honey and leave for at least 3 hours. Honey must be liquid - candied honey is not suitable!

Place the duck on a bottle and let it dry with honey

It's time to put the duck in the oven. Pre-stuff it with apple slices. Put as much as will fit in the belly.

Stuff the duck with apple wedges

After that, the abdomen must be sewn up so that the duck is soaked from the inside with apple juice without losing moisture. Brush the carcass with honey again. Wrap the tips of the legs and wings in foil.

Sew the belly of the duck, wrap the legs and wings with foil

Cover the whole carcass with a sheet of foil, press it tightly so that there are no gaps. Feel free to send it to the oven for 1 hour at a temperature of 200 degrees.

Cover the duck completely with foil

While your duck is languishing and pondering in the warmth, mix 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of honey.

Make Peking Duck Sauce

Meanwhile, the carcass of the duck has already rested enough in the oven. Remove it and brush with the cooked sauce on all sides.

Brush the half-cooked duck with the sauce

Place the duck in the oven again, uncovered with foil, this time until it is completely cooked. In an hour and a half, the skin on the carcass will brown and become crispy.

See how the duck is browned in the oven!

Now Peking duck with apples can be taken out and butchered. Serve in the traditional way or as you wish, for example, with boiled potatoes and pickled cucumbers!

Butcher the duck and serve in any way you like

With oranges

We suggest you try the duck with oranges. This method of cooking poultry is not very popular with us, but in vain. Orange gives the meat a rich, delicate aroma and a very pleasant taste. Moreover, you already know how to cook Peking duck, and this recipe is not much different from the previous ones.

In addition to those ingredients that are indicated in the classic recipe, you will need:

• 2 large oranges for the filling;
• 1 large orange (juice) for icing;
• juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon for the marinade.

Prepare the carcass as in previous recipes. Dip it in a marinade of lemon and orange juice, honey, rice wine, soy sauce, star anise, salt and 5 spices. Leave in a cold room overnight. Remember to turn over from time to time - the duck should be evenly soaked in the marinade on all sides.

Take a deep baking dish, brush it with oil and lay the duck belly up. Stuff with 2 orange wedges. Sew up the belly to prevent oranges from escaping from the duck when baked. Send the mold to the oven for 2.5 hours at 190 degrees. When it's the second hour of cooking, you will have to water the carcass with the juice that has flowed out of it every 15 minutes.

In the meantime, make the icing: mix the juice of 1 lemon with honey and wine (2 tablespoons each), and cook until the liquid is half as much.

Cover the finished duck with icing and serve with oranges

When the duck is ready, let it cool slightly, remove the orange slices from the belly and cover the carcass with icing.

In a multicooker

It would be foolish not to try to use this miracle of kitchen technology to prepare such a dish. The multicooker will greatly facilitate your work and simplify the cooking process.

A whole duck just won't fit in a multicooker bowl, so take half of the carcass. In addition, 3 more tablespoons of honey and salt to taste. Use ready-made Hoi-sin sauce instead of the marinade.

A whole duck carcass will not fit in a multicooker, so take some of it

Wash and cut the carcass, wipe each piece with salt and refrigerate for 3 hours. When time has passed, remove and brush with honey. The carcass should be kept in this state for 1 hour at room temperature.

It's time for the Hoi-sin sauce. Dip each piece well in it. And leave the meat alone for another 2 hours.

Now put the pieces into the multicooker bowl, pour just enough water so that it doesn't reach the top layer of meat by a third. 3 tablespoons of sesame oil and soy sauce for taste and aroma, and you can turn on the "Stew" mode for 2 hours.

That's all, now the duck can be served on the table.

Video: Cooking Peking Duck

That's the whole secret of the juicy and spicy Peking duck. Maybe you and I have not reached the level of mastery of Chinese chefs, but we are much closer to the mysteries of Asian cuisine. Tell us in the comments if you have ever cooked this dish, what difficulties did you face? We hope you and your friends will love the Peking duck. Bon Appetit!