Peking Duck - General Principles and Methods of Cooking
Cooking a Peking duck according to the classic Chinese recipe at home is quite difficult. This will require not only the knowledge of special secrets, but also a lot of specific ingredients and kitchen appliances. For example, such as a compressor for separating skin from meat, a special press, squeezing juice for a broth from a duck's skeleton, or a wood stove, in which birds are fried.
There are several ways to cook a real Peking duck. In the first case, it is suspended above the fire, for the maintenance of which the branches of fruit trees are used. In this case, the bird is obtained with a beautiful shiny reddish crust, tender meat and a pleasant fruity aroma. In the second case, it is fried in a closed oven. Initially, under great fire, then it is gradually reduced. So the peel is especially tasty and crispy, and the meat is appetizing. There was another way of cooking, which is now practically not used - the duck carcass was pierced with a large fork and fried, holding over the fire.
There is no special need to cook Peking duck using restaurant technology, since and baked at home, flavored with spices, honey and sauce, it turns out very, very tasty. It is served with pancakes, various sauces, including Hoicin, fresh cucumber, green onion feathers.
Peking Duck - Best Recipes
Recipe 1: Peking Duck with Pancakes
If you cook a duck according to the classic recipe is difficult, so at least you want to submit it according to all the rules. Therefore, in addition to meat, we bake pancakes and chop a cucumber. The process of cooking Peking duck is not fast, but the result compensates for everything. Ingredients: duck - 2-2,5 kg, 4 tbsp. lie honey (liquid), 100ml dry red wine, 5 tables of lodges. soy sauce, on a table of boxes. vegetable oil, ground ginger and black pepper, salt. Dough for pancakes: 2 eggs, an incomplete glass of water and milk, 1.5 stacks. flour, a bunch of green onions, 2 table lies. vegetable oil. For the decoration of the dish: 2 fresh cucumbers, soy sauce.
Method of preparation
Duck preparation. Gutted carcass must be doused with boiling water from all sides. Ideally, the bird is hung on a hook and poured with boiling water, but at home the hook in the kitchen is hard to find, so you can put the carcass in the sink. Drain with a napkin and rub with salt. Then duck meat is placed on a jar or glass and sent to the refrigerator for twelve hours. Juice will flow from it, so a wide dish or a plate should be placed under the glass.
Cooking Duck sealed in foil and put on the grid. Under the grate should substitute a baking sheet, which pour a glass of water. Transfer the whole structure to the oven and bake for one hour (190-200C).
For the sauce, mix the butter, ginger, pepper and 4 tbsp. spoons of soy sauce.
Remove the duck from the oven, remove the foil, and smear the cooked sauce. Cover the bird's legs and legs with foil and send to the oven for another half hour, raising the temperature to 250C.
Prepare another sauce. Mix honey and 1 spoon of soy sauce. To remove the duck from the oven, coat them with the whole carcass. The bird is ready.
Bake pancakes. They can be prepared in advance, while the duck sunbathes in the oven. Mix all the ingredients for the dough, including vegetable oil, add chopped green onions and bake thin pancakes.
Everything is ready, it remains only to arrange serving dishes. Cucumbers, peeled, cut into long cubes and put on a plate. Soy sauce pour into a bowl. Next to put a plate with pancakes. With the duck cut off small pieces of meat, be sure to grab a piece of skin. Chinese cooks cut more than one hundred pieces from one duck. It is not necessary to strive for this, the main thing is to make beautiful thin slices. They eat the dish like this: smear pancake with sauce, put meat, cucumber on it and wrap the stuffing.
Recipe 2: Peking Duck in Orange Sauce
The meat of a real Peking duck should have a sweetish taste, therefore it is not rubbed with garlic and hot pepper. When serving, the meat slices are wrapped in a pancake, but in the modern version you can use pita bread.
Ingredients: duck carcass at 2 kg, 3 tables of boxes. soy sauce and honey, 2 tablespoons of brandy, a glass of orange juice, orange peel 1, salt, pepper - 1 tea., 0.5 tea. ginger
Method of preparation
Rub the carcass with salt, inside, too, and sprinkle with brandy. Put the duck in the pan and put it in the cold for the night. Rested bird smeared with a mixture of honey and grated zest, let it rest for another three or four hours.
Then the duck is wrapped in foil, put on a baking sheet and baked for about an hour and a half (200C). In the process of frying the carcass to turn. If there is a lot of fat, it is collected in a glass or jar.
Prepare the sauce: mix the juice, ginger, soy sauce, pepper and two tablespoons of duck fat. Release duck from foil, smear with sauce. Wrap the wings and legs back in foil, and bake for forty minutes more at a temperature of 220-240 ° C until reddening. Warm the carcass cut into slices.
Make out and serve the dish with pancakes (pita), soy sauce, cucumber, green onions.
Recipe 3: Peking Duck
Cooked in this way, duckling is obtained with a rich taste, close to the taste of a real Peking duck. This is facilitated by the long marinating of poultry in a special sauce. Contains dark soy sauce and sesame oil.
Ingredients: duck carcass - 2-2,5 kg, 3 table. lie honey, salt. Marinating sauce: 1 table. lie sesame (vegetable) oil and honey, 2 table. lie dark soy sauce. Hoisin sauce: 1 table. lie sesame (vegetable) oil, 3 table. lie soy dark sauce, 1 tsp. lie wine vinegar, garlic powder and hot chili pepper, salt, to taste seasoning 5 spices (Chinese seasonings). Method of preparation
Rub the carcass with salt and leave it to sleep overnight.
The next day, it is cooked, and this process begins with a hot duck bath. It needs to be dipped several times in a bucket with boiling water or a good pour from the kettle. Drain. Take a syringe with a thick needle, and piercing the skin, drive air under it, separating the skin from the meat. The syringe in this case acts as a compressor. Then spread with honey and leave for an hour.
Prepare the sauce for marinating. Soy sauce, butter, honey mix and coat the bird with this mixture every half hour for four hours, i.e. It turns out eight or nine times. And inside, too, lubricate. If the sauce is not enough, make more.
Heat the oven (250C). To build a structure in it: pour water in a baking tray, a couple of centimeters deep, install a grid on top, brush it with oil, place a duck on the grid. Fry for about forty minutes, further reduce the temperature to 160C, and leave for another hour. Then turn the bird over and bake for another half hour.
If you are unable to buy a real sauce Hoisin, you can make it at home by mixing the necessary components. Bird chop and serve with hoisin, pancakes, cucumber, green onions.
