Wow. Certainly gives me a better appreciation for the dish… and from PDH no less!
and when in Beijing:
Da Dong Roast Duck (北京大董烤鸭店) | the Beijinger" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
interesting, traditionally there is no “frying” as PDH does. I guess that appeals to some with the crispier skin. Frying it afterwards can certainly hide any flaws in cooking.
What’s funny is the California Health Code has an exemption for Chinese Whole Ducks and air drying and allows the raw meat to hang out without refrigeration for up to 4 hours
Lately I’ve been using a simple, but very untraditional, method with great results using boneless duck breasts:
- Remove skin from duck breasts
- Rub breasts (the duck’s) with seasonings
- Seal breasts in pouch and cook SV for a few hours @ 130F
- Chop duck meat
- Chop skin into pieces and fry until crispy
- Drizzle some of the rendered duck fat over chopped duck meat and mix
Serve duck meat and crispy skin pieces with steamed buns or mandarin pancakes, sauce (I use a Joyce Chen recipe with hoisin, miso, sesame oil, etc.) and shredded scallions.
By coincidence, I had Peking Duck at a dinner last night (I was a guest, not the host), and, taking one look at the duck, I murmured to my wife that it looked like the duck was fried at the end to crisp the skin (I’d never seen that before).
After one bite, it was all too obvious to me that my suspicion was correct - the duck had been fried to crisp the skin. It was definitely unlike any Peking duck I’ve ever had, and, honestly, I didn’t like the skin - which is pretty much all I usually will eat when having Peking duck. The flesh wasn’t bad though.