Peking Duck
Peking Duck (Chinese: `北京鸭, pinyin: bei jing ya) is a famous dish from northeastern China. The name comes from the obsolete anglicization of the name of the capital of China, Beijing.
The dish is mostly prized for the crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat. Most restaurants will make two dishes out of one duck -- one with thin slices of skin with a small layer of fat underneath, and another one with the duck meat. This is often a noodle or a stir fry dish. The leftover duck carcass is often given to patrons so that it can be later boiled into soup.
In China, a special breed of duck is grown exclusively for this dish. The ducks are kept in individual cages and force-fed so that they grow plump and without muscle.
See also: Mandarin cuisineServing
A traditional way of serving Peking Duck is with steamed mu-shi pancakes, slivered spring onions (also known as scallions), hoisin sauce, and plum sauce. (Other restaurants will use man tou, a type of Chinese fluffy steamed bread.) One places pieces of chopped duck meat on a pancake, adds a bit of hoisin sauce, plum sauce, and scallion. The mixture is rolled up and eaten with the fingers. Preparation
Peking Duck requires a duck with its head still attached. First, it is inflated with a bicycle pump or other object, separating the skin from the carcass. Then the skin is scalded with boiling water to make drier and tauter and brushed with sugar-water so that it acquires a dark, rich color with the slight aroma of caramel during the subsequent cooking process. After drying for half a day, the duck is hung in a hot oven where it is roasted for an hour or more, during which time the copious fat of the duck melts off and the skin becomes crispy. Because a large oven is required, Peking Duck is not usually prepared at home; Peking Duck is customarily eaten in a restaurant or bought already prepared at shops or restaurants and taken home to eat.