Sampling the Peking duck

My experience with ducks of the Indian persuasion had been quite dodgy. I was six. Upon returning from school one afternoon, I was confronted with the sight of two ducks, gloriously plumed, nervously pecking at each other’s necks. Till this day I haven’t quite figured out what set of circumstances conspired to turn creatures of such beauty and vigour into a bony, chewy mess swimming in an insipid blackish curry. But I drew two assumptions from that terrible dinner. First, Indians can’t cook duck. Second, Indian duck doesn’t make for a good meal.

At the end of my Peking duck assignment, one of these assumptions is proved wrong and the other one validated.

Fit for an emperor
As I walk in to the Emperor’s Court restaurant at Renaissance Powai, chef Ryan Tang Yin Kit comes out to greet me. A wiry, industrious looking man, he is going to make Peking Duck — or Beijing Duck as they’re now called — rolls for me. I follow him into a rather spacious kitchen lined with aquariums. “The ducks are in that.” He points to a shiny, cylindrical, space-agey barrel also known as a convection oven. I peer inside to see five date-brown roast ducks hanging along the sides. A semi-circle of deliciousness. A convection oven is a necessary to give the ducks an even roast, chef Ryan says.

“These are Indian ducks. Not really the best quality. For our Peking duck festival we’ve ordered ducks from New Zealand. They haven’t arrived yet.” More’s the pity. In this age of free-range- food-product worship, the best ducks are apparently the ones which are force-fed corn every six hours for sixty-eight days. Our Indian ducks on the other hand run free and wild, which makes them ‘muscly and gamey’. For the perfect Peking duck, you have to boil the duck twice after cleaning it. This “clears away all the impurities.” The defining feature of a Peking duck is the crisp, delicious skin. To get that perfect level of crunchiness you have to separate it from the flesh by peeling it back a little bit from the neck and blowing into it.

Like a balloon. Then you drench the duck in maltose sugar, red vinegar and shao-sing wine and let it hang for four or five hours until it dries off completely. Once dry, you put it into the convection oven and roast it for about 45-50 minutes. Then you set it to rest, so that the juices that have risen to the surface during the roasting process, seep back into the duck.

Whoever invented the Peking duck roll, created the perfect mouthful, as does chef Ryan. The softness of the paper- thin pancake is perfectly complemented by the sweet and salty base of the hoisin sauce or a plum sauce or a sweet chilli sauce or even a kam-bao sauce. The finely-sliced cucumbers and spring onions give you a pungent hit and finally the juicy duck meat, crunchy on the top and meltingly soft underneath, makes it a mouthful of heaven.

Mallard a trois
Rolls are not the only way you can enjoy the charms of the Peking duck though. Chef Liang of the Pan Asian restaurant at the ITC Maratha makes that clear from the get go. A Chinese family of four, he tells me, would order one duck and that would comprise of all the courses of their meal. The cooking process is much the same and the roasting is done in closed ovens. The other way to roast the Peking duck is over a wood fire. “The Chinese use wood from fruit-bearing trees which infuse the duck with flavour.”

What sets this meal apart is that chef Liang makes three amazing courses from the same duck. For the rolls, it’s the skin that is mainly used. The meat is used for a nice simple saute with vegetables. And finally, the bones are used in a stock to make duck soup.

The rolls are wonderful. Chef Liang prefers to serve them with hoisin sauce only. He’s a bit of a traditionalist. But the shredded roast duck with red and green peppers, bamboo shoots, black fungus mushrooms lightly sauteed in oyster sauce and sesame oil is a revelation.

It’s a simple and quick dish. And it’s plate-lickingly good. Each ingredient including the roast duck retains its original taste and texture. The dish just has so much flavour that it takes your Peking duck experience to a whole  new level. And finally the duck broth soup with Chinese cabbage and egg tofu makes for a delicious final course. Light and tasty, it helps settle the brilliant flavours dancing on your tongue and is the perfect send off for your dinner.

Nevermore will I doubt the capacity or taste of the Indian duck. In fact chef Liang tells me that he finds the meat of the Indian duck softer than its Chinese counterpart, though the skin is rather thin and non-fatty. I think it’s safe to say that for Indians cooking duck is not our forte. But when you have such excellent Chinese chefs plying their trade in this city, who cares?   

Beijing Duck Roll
Ingredients
l1 kg duck
l 5gm red vinegar
l 10gm shao shing wine
l 20gm pancake
l 20gm cucumber
l 20gm spring onion
l 10gm salt
l 10gm chicken broth
l 5gm white pepper
l 100gm cooking oil
l 20gm Hoisin sauce
l 20gm plum sauce
l 20gm tomato chili sauce
l 20gm “kam bao” sauce
l 20gm chili bean sauce and 10gm sugar

Preparation:
l Use hot water to wash the duck. Mix together water, maltose sugar, red vinegar and shao shing wine and apply on the duck skin and hang for four to five hours until dry
l Heat the oven and roast the duck for 45 minutes
l Heat a wok with oil, deep fry the duck until crisp and golden brown and cut into pieces and place on the plate
l In order to prepare the pancake for the duck meat, mix 250 gm of flour and two cups water to make the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes. Cut the dough into small pieces and roll them into thin circles of 15X15 cm and pan fry till cooked
l Serve with hot pan cake, Hoisin sauce, plum sauce, tomato chili sauce, kam bao sauce, chili bean sauce, sugar, spring onion and cucumber