*Beijing Roast Duck / Peking Duck
BEIJING ROAST DUCK is a famous duck dish from Beijing. This dish has been invented since the Yuan Dynasty. Nowadays, we served this dish as one of the China’s National Foods.
As you can see the above picture, the duck is roasted traditionally in an oven either a closed oven or hung oven .
Closed oven : It is built of brick and fitted with metal griddles. The oven is preheated by burning Gaoliang wood at the base. Then the duck is placed in the oven immediately after the fire burns out. Why ? It is because it allows the meat to be slowly cooked through by convection of heat within the oven.
Hung oven : It is designed to roast up to 20 ducks at the same time with an open fire fuelled by hardwood from peach or pear trees. Ducks are hung on hooks above the fire and roasted at a temp. of 270°C for 30 to 40 minutes. When the ducks are cooking, the chef may use a pole to dangle each duck closer to the fire for 30 sec intervals.
How to serve this dish?
The cooked Beijing Roast Duck is traditionally carved in front of the diners and served in 3 stages.
1) Skin is served dipped in sugar and garlic sauce;
**(The chef cut the duck skin and meat into slices)
2) The meat is then served with steamed pancakes, scallions and sweet noodle sauce;
3) The meat can be served with several vegetables, typically cucumber and carrot sticks.
(Skin, steamed pancakes, slices of cucumber and scallion and sweet noodle sauce)
The diners spread sauce over the pancake, then the meat with the vegetables are wrapped inside the pancake, and then of course taste it with your mouth lol~ :-p
We have eaten the meat and the skin of the roast duck, how about the remaining fat, meat and bones? We Chinese do not waste any food as a good manner, we will use them to make a broth (that means a soup lol).
I have tried this dish several times, it is really delicious!!! :-p When I am writing this post, I feel hungry and really want to taste it again! :-p :-p :-p
