Home Made Peking Duck

Poultry

Home Made Peking Duck
Ingredients:
1 rinsed dried 5 or 6 pound Peking duck, its head left on
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
3 Tablespoons dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
5 slices fresh ginger, each one smashed
10 to 20 scallion brushes
1 cucumber, seeded, cut into three-inch sticks
2 cups all-purpose four
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
10 to 20 Mandarin pancakes
½ cup Hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Preparation:
1.Tie a rope or ribbon around the neck of a duck and hang it in a cool dry airy place for more than twelve hours. Put a pan under it to catch any drippings.
2. Mix and heat soy sauce, honey, dry sherry or rice wine, and mashed fresh ginger, bringing this mixture to just below the boiling point. With Hoisin sauce, brush the bird, inside and out several times.
3. Make scallion brushes and set them and cucumber sticks in ice water for a few hours. After they curl, drain them and keep them chilled
4. Make pancakes mixing the flour with half a cup of boiling water. Stir with a wooden spoon, then cool this mixture.
5. Knead this dough on a floured board until smooth, then cover it with a cloth and let it rest for half an hour.
6. Now cut it into eight to ten pieces, and roll each one into a five-inch circle. Brush one side of each one and stack them, oil side down. If not using now, wrap the pile with plastic wrap and cover it with a cloth.
7. Now, cut the head but not the neck off the bird, and cover the legs with foil, then preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and put a large heat-proof two-inch deep pan the bird, the bird itself on a wire rack above the pan. Fill the pan with an inch of water, and put it and the bird in the oven. We like to attach two ‘S’ hooks, one at each end of the bird, and hang it above the water, breast side down. Turn it carefully in the middle of the two hour baking time. Carefully discard the fat and other liquid in the pan.
8. Put the bird on a cutting board, and with a cleaver or shears cut the skin and meat into two-inch pieces, and serve it on a pre-heated platter. If desired, mix some hoisin sauce wit a few tablespoons of cold tea and use as a dipping sauce or use the scallion brushes to spread some on the skin-side of the bird.

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