How to make crispy duck at home
If you would like to try your hand at making your own crispy duck this Chinese New Year we have some top tips for you depending on how much time you have….
in a hurry? dig the Chinese 5 Spice out of the cupboard…
A quick tip is to sprinkle a generous portion of Chinese 5 Spice over the skin of duck portions or whole duck and then cook the meat according to pack instructions. When the bird is cooked, rest the meat and then shred up and in wraps or pancakes with hoisin sauce, chopped cucumber and spring onions. If you can’t find any Chinese 5 Spice you could use garam masala instead.
If you have more time…
We tried making Chinese restaurant style crispy duck at home and it was delicious. The night before we wanted to eat our ‘fake-away’ we placed the following ingredients into a pan to make the aromatic liquor….
- 2 Gressingham duck legs
- 2 Star Anise
- 1 1/2 tsp Szechuan peppercorns
- 1/2 tsp Cloves
- 3 sticks Cinnamon
- 2 Spring Onions
- 3 tbsp Chinese Rice Wine (or dry sherry)
- 4 tbsp Soft brown sugar
- 4 tbsp Soy sauce
- 1 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 Pint Chicken Stock
- 1 Large Knob of fresh ginger, sliced
We put the pan into the fridge to marinade overnight.
When it was time to cook, we put the pan with the legs and liquor on the hob to boil. Once they were boiling we turned the heat down and let them simmer for 1 hr 15 minutes. The aromas coming from the pan as the legs cooked were amazing!
We then removed the legs from the liquid and placed them on a tray under the grill so the skin crisped up.
We shredded the meat and served it in wraps (we didn’t have any pancakes in the cupboard!) with strips of cucumber, spring onion and lots of Gressingham plum and hoisin sauce.
Safe to say there were no leftovers afterwards!
If this seems too much like hard work you can find our Aromatic crispy duck kits in all of the major retailers. Have a look at our stockists page.
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