Duck with Chinese pancakes

This recipe is similar to Peking duck. It contains the same ingredients and sauces. Making Peking duck, with that shiny skin that is slowly dried in the oven, is better done in a high-quality Chinese restaurant. But making duck with this recipe is very similar to Peking duck.

This dish is in many ways pretty Christmassy ?. It contains:

– an oven
– a wild bird
– scrumptious sauces
– eat posh but with your hands
– Christmas spices
– a potentially excellent combination with fantastic red wine

Wild or tame

I’ve made my duck dish with domestic duck and wild duck. I liked the wild duck the best, although it was a lot less fat and smaller (700 grams). The wild duck has a lot of flavor and comes out of the oven tender and juicy.

Above you see a domestic duck. It is much larger and fatter: more than 1,5 kilos and it needs, therefore, a lot longer in the oven (at least 2 hours). Ask the butcher what he/she advises about the oven time. Because I liked the wild duck so much I’ve adapted this recipe accordingly.

Shot

I order my wild duck at my local butcher and paid 16,50 euros for it. The wild Dutch duck is really shot down by a hunter. Make sure you take out all the shot before serving. The butcher does that for you, but usually, you will find a few more.

This ‘oven duck recipe’ is enough for 2 people and is ready in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Wild duck does not need long in the oven.

Ingredients

700 gr wild duck
4 cm, finely chopped fresh ginger
4 cm of ginger unpeeled and cut into two pieces
2-3 teaspoons 5-spices mix
1 teaspoon of salt

Pancakes (about 20)

250 grams of flour
140 milliliters of hot water
Pinch of salt

Filling

Cucumber
Spring onions
Chili pepper

Sauces

Hoisinsauce (click here for the recipe)
Plum sauce (recipe coming soon)

Preparation

I first double check for shot in my duck. Then I carefully cut a crosshatch in the skin about 1 centimeter apart. It is quite thin, so be careful with a sharp knife; do not go too deep.

The crosshatch ensures a crispy skin and the breast will not pull too tight.

For my rub, I use ginger, 5-spices mix and salt. Ginger is easily cleaned with a teaspoon. Gently grate the skin off. Works perfectly for irregularly formed ginger roots. When the skin is gone, I finely chop the ginger, mix it with the 5-spices and the salt.

5-spices

Five spice mix consists of cinnamon, star anise, szechuan pepper, fennel seed and clove powder. All taste groups, which we know so far, are part of this fantastic spice mix; sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami.

Rub

I rub the spices firmly over the duck. I try not to leave any part unattended. Do not forget the inside. I rub the mix in the cavity and then fill it up with the two pieces of ginger. They do not need to be peeled.

I leave my duck like this for 15-30 minutes.  The skin marinates in the 5-spices mix while my duck can reach room temperature.

Oven

I set the oven at 22o degrees Celsius. I also heat the oven dish in the oven.

Baking

When the oven is the right temperature, I carefully remove the baking dish and place the duck in the middle. You can hear it sizzling. The bottom of the bird is sealed this way and will hold the juices better.

I bake my duck for 20 minutes at 220 degrees and then for another 5 minutes at 180 degrees.

I bring down the temperature because I do not want to burn the skin in the last 5 minutes.

After 25 minutes I remove the dish from the oven and wrap it in tinfoil to rest for 30 minutes. The juices are sucked back up by the meat and the duck becomes lovely tender and juicy.

Chinese pancakes

Peking duck is eaten in a thin pancake that is filled with crispy vegetables, such as cucumber and spring onions cut lengthwise. Check out how to make the pancakes here.

And….. scrumptious. The sweetness of the hoisin, the crispiness of the duck with its 5 spices herbs is coming through strongly. And then at the end, the sharpness and stinginess of the chilli. This is so much fun to eat! Serve them with hoisin and plum sauce.

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