Peking duck

Jeremy_C · August 19, 2018, 2:27am

Has anyone had any experience ordering a Peking duck online to serve at home? Any suggestions or experiences appreciated.

alan_weinberg · August 19, 2018, 3:41pm

I have picked up and brought home Peking duck from Capital Seafood. The steam in the enclosed container causes it to lose some of the skin crispiness and that is unfortunate.

MitchTallan · August 19, 2018, 8:22pm

I was going to say, anyone who does ship Peking duck is going to face the customer being disappointed in the most important part. It is like shipping perfect French fries. There was a time 20+ years ago when I was into roasting Peking duck at home. I would scald the duck in boiling water, inflate the space under the skin with air from a pump, hang it in the basement with a fan blowing on it for 24 hours, and experimented with all kinds of roasting variations. It’s fun, not that much work, but there is a messy oven to deal with afterword and 99% of us can’t carve a roast duck like the experts do. Plus, go to NYC’s Chinatown and they have plexiglass booths to chop the duck up in after the skin is removed. There is a reason for that. So if you must, your best bet is to be prepared to learn how to make the buns at home (very simple), plan on reheating the duck at 550-600 degrees if possible to crisp up the skin, and learn to carve the duck. The Chinese are experts at exposing every ounce of meat on a duck with their chopping methods. The rest of waste a lot of duck meat. You will need twice as many ducks as you thought.

Jeremy_C · August 20, 2018, 3:02am

I was going to say, anyone who does ship Peking duck is going to face the customer being disappointed in the most important part. It is like shipping perfect French fries. There was a time 20+ years ago when I was into roasting Peking duck at home. I would scald the duck in boiling water, inflate the space under the skin with air from a pump, hang it in the basement with a fan blowing on it for 24 hours, and experimented with all kinds of roasting variations. It’s fun, not that much work, but there is a messy oven to deal with afterword and 99% of us can’t carve a roast duck like the experts do. Plus, go to NYC’s Chinatown and they have plexiglass booths to chop the duck up in after the skin is removed. There is a reason for that. So if you must, your best bet is to be prepared to learn how to make the buns at home (very simple), plan on reheating the duck at 550-600 degrees if possible to crisp up the skin, and learn to carve the duck. The Chinese are experts at exposing every ounce of meat on a duck with their chopping methods. The rest of waste a lot of duck meat. You will need twice as many ducks as you thought.

Yes, I had assumed as much. Just curious if any out there had tried the ready to heat versions one can procure online and if so, what the experience was like.