Ingredients
1 stephen ceideburg
1 each duck
Directions
HANDY CHINESE TRICKS FOR COOKING A WHOLE DUCK Cooking a duck can be
intimidating to home cooks. Unlike chicken, there's a layer of fat
that can cause problems. When duck is simply roasted, it often cooks
unevenly, leaving a lot of excess fat. In addition, much of the
potentially delicious skin is discarded. Chinese cooks slove these
problems by applying two or more cooking methods to melt away most of
the fat while enchancing the flavor of the meat. As a bonus, this
technique can produce duck skin that is succulently crisp. For
example, a duck may be seasoned and hung overnight in a cool, airy
place, then steamed, perhaps smoked, and finally fried to a golden
brown. Or, a duck may be browned over high heat in a wok full of oil
(which melts away some of the fat), drained, and finally simmered in
a wine/soy/rock sugar sauce, which is reduced at the end of the
cooking time to a syrupy glaze. Sometimes just the skin is stuffed
with boned duck meat, which has been mixed with glutinous rice or
barley, mushrooms, Chinese dates, lotus seeds and ham; then the whole
thing is steamed. The famous Peking Duck, which many rank as one of
the world's greatest dishes, begins by easing the skin away from the
meat then pumping in air so the whole duck inflats like a balloon.
The duck then is scalded in a honey-vinegar mixture and hung
overnight to dry before being cooked. This dish is not a good choice
for the home cook because the duck is best roasted suspended in a
special clay-lined oven. The lacquered-looking ducks that hang in
Chinese delicatessens, somethimes mistakenly thought to be Peking
ducks, actually are Cantonese roast ducks. After basting the skins
and hanging the ducks overnight, they are roasted to golden brown
perfection ~- a sauce of five-spices, star anise, wine and garlic
simmering in their cavities. For not much more than the price of an
uncooked duck, these, by the half or whole, make excellent take-out
food. The method that follows for making Sichauan Crispy Skin Duck is
typical of Chinese duck cookery. It requires a few steps over a
couple of days, and two cooking procedures, but it's not difficult -
although frying a whole duck in a wok full of oil may be a new
experience.
Servings: 6 servings
Cooking Duck~ Chinese Style Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Asian; Chinese; Duck; Meat; Poultry
The History of Recipes
It is quite feasible to follow the history of written cooking instructions way back into history, in fact as far back into recorded history as pharonic Egypt, and quite possibly further than that. Having said that, these, ancient records were just very simple pictorial instructions for food preparation.
Fascinatingly, the oldest recipe in existence, according to food historians is a collection of tablets in the Sumerian language which show the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel exhilarated. As we move into The time of the roman empire 25BC a roman called Apicius wrote a number of documents detailing recipes enjoyed by the Romans. In his works, he describes how the meals were split into starters, main course and desserts, a very modern way of dining. Aspicius also tells us how the Roman chefs used many different spices, including a few that are still present in modern kitchens for example thyme, mint and asafoetida. In the 15th century, people returning from the crusades brought back a variety of foods and herbs from Arab countries, such as rosemary and coriander. These new herbs and spices led to a torrent in cookery books, most of which are kept safe in private collections. Over the next few centuries, the powerful and rich houses competed to serve up the most exotic meals, and as a consequence, cooks and their recipe collections were at a premium. Nevertheless, it was during the nineteenth century the formal cooking and recipe books became popular. Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally famous Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, devoted their lives to collating, testing, and recording recipes common in their social group. By the arrival of the twentieth century, cook books were highly popular mostly as a result of more people being able to read, people having more spare time and having more money to spend. The introduction of television gave us TV cooks and the recipe books that accompanied them. Which brings us neatly to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, allowing us all to access thousands of recipes like those on this web site. |
We hope you enjoy this Cooking Duck~ Chinese Style recipe.
