Peking Duck.... Mood = Crackling

Chinese food is something that is quite tricky to make and if you get it wrong, it goes very very wrong. I have cooked duck before but not a whole duck this way. It was a challenge, but not the duck part, the actual pancakes.... Im very good at pastry but this just was a little tricky as the recipe i followed i am sure was wrong so i had to improvise and change it up a little.

So duck, as we found out last night does not have that much meat on it, so be prepared for making something to go along with it as i did, and made some egg fried rice. I was very impressed with the end result, as it tasted FANTASTIC. I loved it and i would make this again. It is always so worth it when you spend time doing something and it turns out beautifully.

I looked at many recipes before making this and realised tehre was much more to do than i thought. For instance you have to boil the duck and the dry it out for 24hours before you cook it. Its not hard to do its just the WAITING and WAITING. This is a very important thing to do as it will help crisp the skin while cooking.






Recipe:

1 whole duck
Salt
Sugar
Golden syrup
Chinese five spice
1 cucumber
Spring onion

Pancake recipe:
250g flour
150 ml boiling water
sesame oil

Method:

• For the duck, boil for 5 minutes and let it rest.

• Cover with seasoning, salt, golden syurp, sugar and let it dry out over night.

• When the time has come to cook your duck, turn the heat up to 180 degrees, and prick the duck all over with a fork. Maybe about 10 pricks in total.

• You have to keep turning it over to crip each side, so keep turning it over every 20 minutes for the next 1 hr 45 minutes.

• To make the pancakes, put the flour in a bowl or kitchenaid and add the boiling water and mix. If you feel the it is too dry add a table spoon of water at a time. Knead the dough till it has become smooth. Maybe knead it for about 5 minutes.

• The let it rest for about half an hour.

•  After it has rested, roll it out into a sausage and cut up into equal peices.

• Flour well and begin rolling the pancakes.

• place 2 pancakes on top of each other and roll. They should not stick if they have been floured properly.

• Heat a pan on medium heat and using a pastry brush cover each side of the double pancakes with sesame oil and begin to cook them.

• It should take a couple of minutes on each side.

• Shred the duck, cut some spring onions and cucmber and serve with chilli jam, plum sauce, and soya sauce and serve.

Something you will be crackling about for a while!!!!