How to Make Peking Duck

By grace.g.yang ยท January 6, 2010
Under: Desserts,Dinner,My Life,Travels

Over the holidays, my mom taught me how to make awesome Peking duck. It’s surprisingly easy to do and I plan on making it again for the Chinese New Year. We found all of the ingredients in my mom’s huge pantry but I also have everything in my pantry, so the ingredients are definitely not hard to obtain.

Peking Duck

Ingredients:

2 ducks
2 cups of red wine (Two Buck Chuck works just fine!)
1 cup of soy sauce
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon honey

IMG_0328

One of my mom’s friends is really handy and made her these duck rests. He cut up two pieces of wood and screwed them together so the ducks could stand straight while they were air drying. Cover the wood up completely with saran wrap or aluminum foil:

IMG_0329

And place the wood through the duck’s carcass (after you remove all of the innards – those can be saved for a soup!):

IMG_0332

Boil a pot of water (about 10 cups) while you prepare the other duck. Mix together the red wine, soy sauce, salt, and honey:

IMG_0336

And while you wait for the water to boil, pose the ducks in a conga line:

IMG_0345

After the water boils, take the ducks to the sink and pour half of the boiling water on one duck:

IMG_0347

And the rest of the water on the second duck:

IMG_0347

Next, place a plastic bag or saran wrap around a table and paint the ducks with the wine + soy sauce:

IMG_0355

After you’ve thoroughly coated the duck, set aside overnight in a cold and draftly place. If your garage is clean and cold, you can store it there. Also, if you don’t have those nifty wood pieces that my mom’s friend made for her, you can use a wire hanger to hold onto the ducks and hang them. You can also use empty wine bottles to hold the ducks. Let them dry overnight (at least 8 hours).

When you get the ducks the next day, place them on the roasting rack, breast side up:

IMG_0408

Cover up the wings with aluminum foil and place them in a 350 degree preheated oven:

IMG_0409

After 20 minutes, take them out of the oven and brush another layer of the sauce on the duck. Also, flip the duck over so the breast is down. Do this every 20 – 30 minutes. After an 90 minutes, the duck should be done:

IMG_0410

Yummy:

IMG_0411

Duck is usually cut up before being served with wraps, hoisin sauce, green onions, and pancakes (skin and meat are usually separate because the skin is so crispy it’s delicious to eat on its own!) Here’s David cutting up the duck:

IMG_0415

My mom has a great serving tray with 6 separate compartments, so we split up the duck and condiments accordingly:

IMG_0423

We served it at a dinner party at our house with some of my mom’s good friends:

IMG_0428

My mom’s friend made all kinds of amazing dishes (Chinese and Danish) – she brought over Danish meatballs (they’re Danish because they’re much bigger than Swedish meatballs):

IMG_0417

Her famous fried rice (with long grain rice instead of the usual Asian short grains):

IMG_0418

Smoked salmon with lettuce, red onion, lemon, and capers:

IMG_0431

An assortment of Asian appetizers (including lotus root, one of my favorites!) and shredded buddha’s hand:

IMG_0430

Sonja, her daughter, made a delicious apple pie (my mom’s colleague brought a raspberry tiramisu for dessert):

IMG_0433

IMG_0435

My mom also made cornbread, a mung bean noodle dish, and roasted butternut squash soup (the butternut squash was straight from her garden!) We had a great night with Sonja, Thomas, Wangling, Kenneth, and my mom’s colleagues and hopefully we’ll see them again the next time we’re in North Carolina.

Reader Comments

i LOVE your blog! i’ve just recently come across it, and have been reading to catch up on all your yummy adventures. i had a question, my mother-in-law moved to NC near Greensboro two years ago, so we go down to visit her pretty frequently. i was wondering, where is there an asian supermarket in the area? i wanted to cook a korean meal for her the last time i was there, but didn’t know enough of the area to find an asian market, so had to make do with what i could find in the regular supermarket, which didn’t have some of the nice specialties i would have preferred. thanks so much!

#1 
Written By Jean on May 5th, 2010 @ 5:01 pm

Hi Jean! There are two places my mom goes –

Super G:

4927 West Market Street
Greensboro, NC 27407-1879
(336) 252-1055

Dynasty:

4103 Spring Garden Street
Greensboro, NC 27407-1692
(336) 854-0751

Both are really great (Super G is very large and also has Mexican specialties). Dynasty is a Vietnamese store that’s a bit smaller but they have some things that Super G doesn’t carry (I think my mom gets her dried tofu there)

#2 
Written By grace.g.yang on May 5th, 2010 @ 5:08 pm

Hey, does it make a difference if you inflate the duck with air beneath the skin? I saw a cooking show once where they did that and dunked it into the red sauce before hanging and drying. These still had their necks and they tied them with string so air wouldnt get out. anyway, I didnt want to use a bicycle pump to inflate the duck so thats why I never tried. anyway, since your recipe looks easy ill try that instead.

#3 
Written By AR on January 27th, 2012 @ 9:53 pm

Grace.G.Yang you could breath into the duck and blow it up like a balloon instead of using a bicycle pump.

#4 
Written By vlad on November 23rd, 2012 @ 5:46 am

Trackbacks

Add a Comment

required, use real name
required, will not be published
optional, your blog address

Previose Post: