Old Beijing (Peking) Roast Duck

As one of the famous cuisine in China. The Beijing Roasted Duck has a long history, which can be traced back to the ealry days of the 10th century. During the Yuan Dynasty it was even presented to the royal court as one of the delicacies for the emperor. That make Beijing Roast Duck becomes a must-ordered food on the table at gala dinner events.

The way of preparing the Beijing Roasted Duck is as follows: First you have to choose a forced-feeding Beijing duck of about 2.5 kilograms. Generally speaking it takes about 50 days to raise a duck to such a size as the duck raised like this has a full chest with white flesh and thin skin, and what is more, the meat is delicate and tender.

Basically it takes three steps to turn a forced-feeding Beijing Duck into a roasted one: first cleaning; secondly to be roasted over the fire in the oven and thirdly to be sliced into pieces and served at the table. A duck to be prepared must undergo the following steps: to be air-pumped, to get the insides out and washed, then the skin to be scalded and with sugar applied on it and finally to help cool the skin. Take the step of air-pumping for instance, it is to make the duck fully round by filling it with air so that the skin becomes smooth witn no wrinkles and the skin thus roasted looks shiny and tastes crispy; To apply sugar onto the skin can help turn the duck out brownish-red, taste sweet and smell fragrant. However, before the duck is brought over the fire its cavity has to be filled with boiling water to the mark of 80% full from its side opening. In this way, when the outside skin is being roasted the inside flesh is being boiled. This is the very know-how why the Beijing Roasted Duck looks brownish-red outside, yet the flesh inside tastes delicate and tenter. To roast a Beijing Duck you have also to control the temperature and the time over the fire properly so as to bring it to a rurn. If the flame is too ablaze the duck will be over-roasted, whereas it won't become crispy should the temperature falls short. In short, it takes about 40 minutes to get a duck done and the roasted one weighs 1/3 short of the unprepared.