Authentic Peking duck: how the cooks in Beijing do it

In Beijing, cooks use white Pekin ducks, which farmers fatten for this dish. They blow air between the skin and the meat so the skin separates, pour boiling water over the duck and brush it with maltose syrup. The duck then hangs for several hours in an airy place. To roast, the cooks hang it in a wood-fired oven, burning fruitwood, or slide it into a closed oven. At the table the chef slices the skin and meat thin. In Beijing the sauce is tianmianjiang, a sweet paste of fermented wheat flour.

At home you have no air pump and no hanging oven. You replace both with drying in the fridge and slow roasting on a rack. The skin turns crisp and brown, but stays a little thicker than in a restaurant.

The right ingredients

• Duck: In the supermarket, the right duck is sold as Pekin duck or domestic duck, in the freezer. A duck of 2 to 2.5 kg is enough for 4 people. Thaw it for 2 days in the fridge. Muscovy ducks have less fat under the skin, and their meat dries out faster during the long roast.
• Glaze: Honey replaces the maltose syrup of the original. It browns faster, so cover the duck with foil as soon as the skin is dark brown. Rice vinegar and Shaoxing wine bring acidity and aroma to the glaze.
• Pancakes: You can buy thin wheat pancakes for Peking duck frozen at an Asian grocery store. Steam them for 3 to 5 minutes in a bamboo basket. To make them yourself, knead 250 g flour with 180 ml hot water, roll out small balls of dough in pairs with sesame oil between them and cook them in a dry pan.
• Sauce: Hoisin sauce tastes sweet and salty and is easier to find than tianmianjiang. More at hoisin sauce.

How to get the skin crisp

• Pat dry: Pat the thawed duck dry inside and out with paper towels. Wet skin turns tough in the oven.
• Scald: Before glazing, pour a kettle of boiling water over the skin. It tightens and stretches. Pat it dry again afterward.
• Dry: Set the duck uncovered on a rack in the fridge, breast up. After 24 hours the skin feels like parchment. 48 hours does no harm.
• Drip pan: Fill the drip pan under the rack 2 cm deep with water. The dripping fat then does not smoke.
• Heat at the end: If the skin is still soft after the cooking time, set the oven to 220 °C (428 °F) for 10 minutes and stay next to it.

Common mistakes

• Duck chilled covered: Under foil the skin stays moist and turns leathery when roasted.
• Torn skin: Loosen the skin from the neck end with your fingers, without a knife. Fat runs out through tears, and the spot stays pale.
• Carved too early: Let the duck rest for 10 minutes. Afterward less juice runs over the skin as you slice.

Carving and serving

First cut the breast skin into pieces and put it on its own plate. Slice the breast meat thin and pull the meat off the legs. To roll, spread a teaspoon of hoisin sauce on a pancake, lay duck, scallion and cucumber on it and fold it up. The next day, make a broth from the carcass.

More ideas with duck: crispy duck, the braised Lu Shui Ya and the Taiwanese rice bowl Ya Rou Fan.