Extra Crispy Peking Duck

[Matt L]

Hello all, I've been charged from a client with making Peking Duck happen in a few weeks. I'm about to engage in some recipe testing, wanted to some extra thoughts from the fine, knowledgable folks here at the pit.

Here's my gameplan thus far. Do a traditional chinese method of poaching the duck for less than 1 minute to begin a little fat render but mostly tighten the skin (I've done this with restaurants in the past who cooked the breasts skin up in a wood fire oven and the results were incredible). Hang the duck in the fridge overnight or two days to further tighten and dry the skin. Roast the duck in a hot pbc with lid cracked, which will hopefully keep the temp high enough and allow some of the humidity to escape to allow the duck skin to become extra crispy. Do a final crisping with bernzomatic torch and lacquer on some honey (restricted crohns diet so honey is only type of sweetener allowed).

Sound like it would yield a good crisp skin? I keep reading about the PBC not yielding much crispy skin with duck roasting, so I was especially hoping to hear if folks have achieved a nice crispy skin and if so how did they do it?

[DeusDingo]

where's Ernest when you need him?

[Ernest]

I'm here! LOL
I didn't see skin poking in the gameplan. You'll need that fine clean needle to poke the skin all over to give the fat an escape route. I'm not sure how that high heat would pair with the extra fat dripping from the duck. I did mine at 325 for most of the cook, then finish off with the lid cracked.

[Matt L]

I could definitely include skin poking. Did your method yield good crispness?

[Ernest]

Matt L Wasn't extra crispy as fried but it was very decent.

[Willy]

I've heard the cheater's way is to simply deep fry the skin. I've tried the bicycle pump thing twice with zero luck in inflating the skin away from the bird. I guess I'm more on board with medium rarish breasts just seared in a skillet. For whole duck, I'll go to the Asian grocery and buy a pre-cooked bird. LOL

[Matt L]

Peking Duck method finally tested. I got busy and didn't get the chance to run the experiment but a client requested peking duck and it worked pretty dang well.

Snagged two Pekin ducks. So I lifted the skin with gloved fingers, forked some holes, poached for 45 seconds, and let hang for 48 hours in the fridge. Built a bigger, hotter fire in the pbc and smoked it with the top cracked over applewood and kbb. It came out crispy.... then I got greedy.

So the client has a kid with crohn's and he can't process normal sugars well, honey only. I tried to do a honey-fish sauce glaze (soy sauce is also against his SCD diet) and throw it in a 500F oven. Well the oven must have been too humid, because I've roasted duck prepared as outlined above in a woodfire oven and gotten crazy crispiness. I lost all my beautiful crispness so I blowtorched it back. Then I remembered Willy's comment and took the skin off to pan fry and make ultra crispy. That worked well too.

So lots of lessons learned. They loved it, even made an SCD appropriate duck sauce (apricot, honey, orange juice, fish sauce) and SCD crepes (almond flour, lots of eggs).

[johnsteen]

Chef Steps has a video on Peking duck today http://chefsteps.us3.list-manage.com...e&e=f8cd2e1471

[Matt L]

Thanks for the tip! I think the final hot oil bath is just the ticket to improve the method.