Drying ducks

Ta da!

This is my duck.

It's the first duck I've ever cooked in my life. It's a Cantonese roast duck and it was delicious.

What is the difference between Cantonese roast duck and Peking duck? Aha, good question. My duck instructor, who incidentally has taught the Cantonese Roast Duck class 40 times in 33 years of teaching at Towngas, was emphatic:

Peking duck is all about the skin. Cantonese duck meat is more delicious.

With Peking duck, they carefully extract the organs through a small hole to keep the skin intact. Then, they blow up the duck like a balloon, which separates the skin from the flesh and makes it roast more crisply. Obviously, this is done with an air pump in most restaurants, but I have to include this crazy photo -- courtesy of a Web site called The Labyrinth -- showing a (Japanese?) chef blowing up a duck with his mouth.



With a Peking duck, the skin is the main event. You cut gorgeous little rounds of crispy skin and fat with just a sliver of meat attached, and wrap it up in a fresh flour pancake with hoisin sauce, spring onion, and cucumber. There are many variations on the condiments, actually (and check out the amazing chopstick technique in the video too!).

Since a Cantonese roast duck is not inflated, the chef can get inside and season it thoroughly so that the flesh is delectable. In preparing our ducks, we first dried out the body cavity with paper towels, then gave it a splash of Mei Kwei Lu Chiew, which is a brand of "baiju" or white liquor, which is made from sorghum and flavored with rose. Then we rubbed the inside of the duck with salt, sugar, and five-spice powder, and tossed in star anise, sliced ginger, and crushed shallots.

The importance of this seasoning cannot be under-estimated. The aroma of the shallots and anise and duck fat are mind-bending; and the flavor infuses to the meat so it is absolutely delectable.

But the skin of the Cantonese duck is exquisite as well: delicately crispy, with more of the fat melted away, so your teeth get just a little playful resistance and then they sink into the rich, flavorful meat.

With both the Peking and the Cantonese ducks an absolutely essential step in preparation is drying. This is really different than any roasting of chickens I have done in Western recipes. It's not just giving the bird a wipe-down with paper towels. Grace Young describes the ideal approach in The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen:

"The most challenging procedure is 'drying' the duck for three hours in a room that is cool and breezy. Never make this on a hot day or in a room that is well heated, or you will run the risk of spoiling the duck. Traditional Chinese cooks feel that air-drying is essential; the drier the duck, the better it will absorb the flavors of the marinade and produce a skin that is crisp."

(p. 180)

Well, in my class, we were bad. We cheated. After seasoning the inside of the duck, we sewed it up with a metal skewer (you pierce the skin on the same side of the flesh instead of back-and-forth to achieve a tighter seal). Then we took the duck by its broken neck and held all 3.5 lbs of him over a wok with boiling water and ladeled the water over him to contract his skin. Then we prepared a glaze of maltose, vinegar, coloring, and water and evenly basted him with it.

I don't know if the duck was a he or a she, but since it had the head on, I began to feel some affinity. His roasted head below...



Anyway, we then put the duck in the oven at the lowest possible temperature, with clothes pins under his "armpits" so even that part of the duck would be nice and crispy. Next we used another clothes pin to "cheat the oven" into thinking that the door was closed so it would run its fan with the door open. So the oven got dry and warm, but the moisture could still escape. Once this was done, we put in the duck on a roasting rack and turned four times at 10-15 minute intervals. Here's what mine looked like after drying:



Before trying to teach myself about Chinese cooking, I was never aware of the critical importance of managing moisture in cooking. Here's another example from Grace Young:

"When preparing stir-fry vegetables, the vegetables should be washed several hours before the meal, so that they will have time to air-dry before stir-frying. Do not be alarmed if the vegetables appear slightly limp by the time they are cooked. This is preferable to wet vegetables. If the vegetables are wet, they will not stir-fry in the pan but will instead immediately begin steaming."

(p. xvii)

When I took a stir-fried noodles class, we boiled the noodles first, then dried them with a kitchen towel before stir-frying.

On the other end of the spectrum, I once defrosted beef in a hurry for a Yan-kit So recipe for Tangerine Beef. Since the beef was so wet from the defrosting, I unwisely omitted the two tablespoons of water from the marinade, in the process achieving a remarkably tough and dry result. If you read my first post about Towngas you will see that meat soaks up water, so it is important to always include it in marinades so the meat will be juicy.

I'm just starting to be aware of the importance of managing moisture and heat in cooking... But I have a feeling that these are critical skills. Literature about Chinese food often talks about "awakening" the ingredients with heat, so I will write more about that as I learn more...