Duck in Beijing: the recipe is not just for a restaurant!

Duck in Beijing, the recipe of which you will find inthis article - this is perhaps one of the most famous dishes of Chinese cuisine. The duck used to cook Chinese chefs, which is familiar to the Slavic table, acquires a completely different taste and aroma. According to sources, this recipe is known since the 14th century, since the reign of the Chinese imperial Yuan dynasty. In those distant times, as now, the duck was rubbed with honey and baked in a special oven. Of course, it's impossible to arrange such an oven at home, so to try a real duck, you need to go to China.

Duck in Beijing at home

At home, you can try to cook a duck for a similar recipe and technology. However, it is likely to be no worse than Beijing's. Ingredients:

a large duck (preferably no longer alive and without feathers, otherwise the process will be very long, you can take and frozen)
rice wine (or rice vinegar, or sherry) - a third of a glass
honey - 4 tablespoons
sesame oil
salt (preferably sea)
Sesame oil
soy sauce
ginger ground
black pepper powder

As you can see, all the ingredients are quite available and inour stores. The problem can arise only with a good duck, but we do not recommend replacing it with another bird. Search! Way of preparation: The first stage: If you got a duck frozen, it must be defrosted beforehand. And do it not in a microwave oven, but in a natural way. First, take it out of the freezer and place it in the refrigerator. Do this on the first evening, and in the second - leave the bird on the table for the night at room temperature. If the duck you got fresh, it should be checked for unplucked feathers, remaining insides and the like. Wash and dry. At the duck, cut off the tips of the wings (upper phalanx). In the region of the neck and tail, the bird may have too much excess fat, it is of no use, so remove it. Now the duck should be hung around the neck (yes, that's it). Find something suitable for this, in the form of a hook, or just make a loop of twine around her neck. The place of the "suspension" is better over the sink, as it is done in order to arrange a hot shower for the bird. Boil the kettle and shave it with steep boiling water, as a result, waiting for the duck's skin to turn white. Let the water drain, wipe the duck with a paper towel. Now take the wine, sherry or vinegar and grate it inside and out. Give her and yourself a break for ten minutes. After that comes the turn of a large salt. She is also rubbed into the duck, outside and inside. Now the duck is sent to the refrigerator for another 12 hours. Since the remaining blood will flow out of it, it is better to give it a vertical position (hang it, put it on a bottle and the like), substituting a container for it. If you deal with the duck in the morning, then until the evening you can be free. In the evening, after 12 hours, take out the duck from the refrigerator for a new procedure. The next 12 hours our duck again will be held in the refrigerator, but already in a honey mask. To do this, grease it with honey, even layer, and only outside. And - again in the refrigerator, in an upright position, for 12 hours. That is until the morning. The second stage: Turn on the oven in the morning. Set it up: put a baking tray down, above it - grill grill. When the temperature reaches 190 degrees, get our duck out of the refrigerator and lay on the grate, breast up. In a pan, pour a glass of water (it will not allow the bird to burn, and the fat will then be washed easier), and cover the duck with the entire structure of the grill and baking tray with a layer of foil. Leave to bake for an hour. Prepare for the duck another "cosmetic mask." Mix the soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and pepper until a thick paste. After an hour, open the duck, remove the foil and remove the baking sheet with water. Take the brush and oil the duck with sauce. Add fire to 260 degrees and send the duck back to "sunbathe" for 20-25 minutes. Take care not to burn! After 25 minutes (or earlier) remove the duck from the oven. Prepare another sauce: 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 - soy sauce. Lubricate them with a duck and send back, but already under the grill. Put the bird on the bottom of the oven, and through the glass, watch that she had time to cover with an even tan, but did not have time to burn. This case is for 5-10 minutes on average. Well, almost everything! Take the duck from the oven, making sure that the crust on it is thin and crispy. Leave to cool slightly. Now you can take a sharp knife and gently remove all the bones. Meat must be cut very thinly, observing the main rule - on each piece should remain a crust. In principle, the duck is ready in Peking. In addition, it took a day or two to do it, in general, everything is done fairly quickly and easily. The main thing is to remember in time about this recipe and in advance to buy a duck before the arrival of guests. To make the feeding of the duck as authentic as possible, you can still prepare rice pancakes for it. Ingredients:

half a kilo of rice flour
2 eggs
water or milk - about 2.5 cups
1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Knead the dough as for ordinary pancakes,rather liquid. Bake them in a pancake pan, preferably without oil. Do not need pancakes of golden color - in the original they should remain pale. If you put hot pancakes in a pile, they can stick together. So it's better to cook them just before serving. As a classic garnish, take fresh cucumbers, leeks and green onions. Cut the first two products with straw, and finely - the third. Lay a slide on the pancake, add the duck and serve to the table. Also, the taste of the dish can be supplemented with sweet and sour sauce Hoi Sin.

We cook a duck in Peking with three changes of dishes

Another classic recipe, of which for centuriespreparation of ducks in Beijing in China has accumulated really a lot. But this one really deserves your attention: putting it into practice, you will turn the pitch of the bird into a real holiday. Three changes in the duck in Beijing - this is not just a dinner or a supper, but a kind of ritual that allows one to penetrate the spirit of ancient China. With such a spectacular serving, the dish you cook will be accurately remembered, and all your efforts in the kitchen will be repaid a hundredfold. Ingredients: For poultry:

a duck weighing 2 kilograms
2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon
onion head
1 tablespoon of honey and boiled water
0.5-1 grams of ground ginger
salt - to taste

For sauce:

75 milliliters (one third glass) of any meat broth
clove of garlic
40 milliliters of soy sauce
third of the head bulb
2 tablespoons flour
Salt, sugar, bitter pepper - to taste

For pancakes:

5 grams of yeast
water, rice flour, salt (them depending on how many pancakes you plan to make)

For garnish and change:

one pickled cucumber
100 grams of mushrooms
Hot pepper - a couple of pods
tablespoon of starch
sweet pepper, fresh cucumber, carrots - 1 piece each
vegetable oil
light beer - 50-100 milliliters
1 gram of ground ginger
a third of a glass of broth
onions - 1 piece
rice - 300-500 grams

Cooking method: Begin to embody the classic recipe with the evisceration of the bird, then thoroughly wash it and dry it. Then stuff the duck with spices: a mixture of sugar and cinnamon (take them 2 tablespoons each), one finely chopped onion, salt and 0.5-1 grams of ginger. Shrink the bird with boiling water, wait 40 minutes, then pour it with a mixture of boiled water and honey (take them for 1 tablespoon) and let it brew in the refrigerator for 5 hours. After that, send the duck into the oven - let it be roasted to a ruddy crust. The classic recipe for cooking duck in Beijing with three changes of dishes suggests feeding it with rice pancakes, so we suggest making them. To achieve maximum originality and authenticity, you can bake them as suggested in the previous recipe, but also a simpler and no less traditional for the Chinese option. After all, this is a nation that invented pelmeni! So just make the dough the same way as for all your favorite dumplings. In rice flour add yeast with salt and water, knead the dough, roll them into pancakes and bake the right amount in a frying pan. Make an original and excellent sauce is also very simple: cut the onion and garlic finely, mix it with bitter pepper, fry it all on any vegetable oil. And then combine it with soy sauce, half the meat broth, sugar and salt. Then take the flour (2 tablespoons) and fry it until it turns golden, and then dilute in the second half of the broth and mix with the first part of the sauce. The original Chinese dressing is ready. Now you can move on to the most interesting - to the pitch. At the first change, please guests with pancakes with slices of duck skin (you can and with thinly sliced meat plates, but they should not be too much), sauce and a side dish of vegetables. To cook the latter, simply cut the marinated cucumber slices, hot peppers, onions, and beautifully decorate it all on a plate platter. Pay attention, pancakes need to be properly wrapped, putting in the center of each piece of cucumber and onions, 2-3 slices of duck skin and not forgetting about a teaspoon of soy sauce. By the way, when you cut off the duck skin, place the areas from the back and the breast in a separate bowl. This skin is also fed to the table, but not on a portioned plate, but independently, along with the sauce. While the guests are enjoying the first change, prepare the second one: prepare a thin cut of duck meat for it (so that the plates will turn out), taste it with salt and sugar, pour a little water into it with a stirred table spoon of starch. Let the ducklings stand for 20 minutes, then fry it in vegetable oil. Now, do carrots, cucumbers, sweet peppers: cut them into small pieces and lightly fry them in deep-frying (until half-ready). In a deep dish, combine the meat and vegetables, season with ground ginger, salt and sugar again, add broth and beer, sauce and half a head of chopped onion to them, bring it to a boil. Serve the duck with vegetables to a table with garnish from boiled rice. And the finishing touch of the traditional Chinese feast is the third change of the duck in Beijing. It is a thick broth, which is brewed from the bones of a bird. It should be cooked for 2-3 hours, so prepare in advance (it's not necessary to serve the whole duck on the table). Cook the broth at a sufficiently strong boil, then strain, add finely chopped onions, so beloved by the Chinese, as well as half a gram of ground ginger and 100 grams of mushrooms. Serve the third change you need warm. Duck in Beijing, whose recipes, unlike many popular dishes, usually do not differ from source to source and from cook to chef, really is a traditional Chinese dish. And although the possibilities of our kitchens do not always allow us to strictly follow the technology of preparing such dishes, this is not an excuse to deny yourself and your relatives the opportunity to try something new and interesting. So be sure to make a duck in Beijing and please gourmets with a culinary holiday - a pleasant appetite for you! We advise you to read: