Motivation
Duck. Roasted, crispy, duck. What other motivation would I need? I saw an article on how to make Peking duck from scratch on the Serious Eats blog and I decided to give it a shot. While I've eaten a good deal of duck in my time, to be honest I've never actually had Peking duck. So I didn't have a good mental target of what I was shooting for besides awesome crispy duck.
The original recipe called cooking the duck in the oven. I decided that I wanted to cook my duck on the egg (grill). The egg is pretty good about holding temperatures on its own, but I also have a Stoker temperature controller to improve my precise grilling. The recipe also called for slathering the duck in maltose syrup, but I couldn't find that ingredient so I ended up using honey, which was the suggested substitution in the original recipe.
Ingredients
For the Duck
1 Duck, thawed
1/4 cup Honey
2 tsp Soy Sauce
2 tsp Kosher Salt
2 tsp Baking Powder
For the Plum Sauce
1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup White Vinegar
4 Plums
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tsp Fresh Ginger, grated
1 tbsp Chili Garlic Sauce
For the Mandarin Pancakes
2 cups Flour
2/3 cup Water, boiling
1/4 cup Sesame Oil
Mise en Place
For the Duck
Chances are you're going to buy your duck frozen so let it thaw in the fridge for 4-5 days.
The day before you plan on cooking take the duck out, rinse off, and remove whatever presents have been hidden in the central cavity. Using your fingers and/or the smooth back of a long handle spoon gently separate the skin from the meat. Be careful not to tear the skin or poke through. Combine honey and soy sauce and microwave for about 20 seconds to soften. Mix well then slather all over surface of the duck, both sides. Combine salt and baking powder in a small bowl and sprinkle all over surface of the duck, both sides. Place uncovered duck back in the refrigerator and let sit 12-24 hours.
Right before you put duck on the grill. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Place I wire rack in the sink (I used one from my roasting pan) and place duck on the rack. Pour 2 quarts of boiling water over one side, flip duck, and pour the remaining 2 quarts over the other side. The skin should shrink and hug the duck firmly.
For the Plum Sauce
Halve the plums and remove pits. I then sliced plums into smaller sections - maybe 1/8ths. You can measure out soy sauce, ginger, and chili garlic sauce and add them to the bowl with the prepared plums. All these ingredients are added at the same time.
For the Mandarin Pancakes
Combine flour and boiling water in medium bowl and stir until dough forms. Knead dough until it become smooth and elastic (~ 5 minutes). Cut dough into 24 even pieces about 1 tablespoon each. Cover with damp towel.
On floured surface (I used parchment paper), roll one piece of dough into three-inch circle. Repeat with second ball. Using pastry brush, coat top of first ball with thin film of sesame oil. Place second ball on top of first. Roll balls together into 8 to 10-inch circle (the thinner the better). I separated each pancake with a piece of plastic wrap.
Method
For the Duck
Set the grill to 350 degrees. Figure out way to stand the duck up vertical. The recipe recommends a large beer can. I have a perforated grill pan designed for the task. Place duck on grill. After about 30 minutes rotate duck. After another 30 minutes reduce grill temperature to 250 degrees. I had already inserted a probe thermometer into the duck so I waited until the interior temperature of the breast came up above 170 degrees F. That took another 45 minutes or so.
For the Plumb Sauce
Combine sugar with 1 tablespoon water in heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepot. Melt over high heat and continue to cook, gently swirling pan, until sugar is deep golden brown (about 3 minutes). Immediately add all of vinegar in one go (sugar will bubble rapidly) and cook until sugar redissolves (about 1 minute). Add plums, soy sauce, ginger, and chili garlic sauce, reduce heat to medium low, and cook, mashing plums with back of wooden spoon until plums are completely broken down, about 10 minutes. Blend sauce with immersion blender or in standing blender until smooth.
For the Mandarin Pancakes
Preheat heavy-bottomed 12-inch cast iron or non-stick griddle pan or skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Place pancakes on griddle and cook until lightly browned in spots on first side, about 1 minute. Flip and repeat on second sides, about 30 seconds longer. Transfer to plate lined with clean kitchen towel and carefully peel pancakes apart.
Verdict
The duck skin was not mahogany and it was not crispy. This was a big disappointment. I suspect this had something to do with my grilling method. I placed the standing duck rig inside a disposable aluminum pan to catch all the delicious duck fat. I suppose this was being too greedy. Only the very top of the duck got mahogany and crispy and I think it was because the aluminum pan prevented the hot air from flowing directly over the whole duck and it ended up being cooking indirectly. I'll know better next time.
As it turns out, the failure mode was smoked grilled duck - which is not such a bad thing. The plum sauce had a nice complex flavor and was spicy. It beat the pants of the sweet premade stuff by a mile.
The mandarin pancakes were good, but a lot of work. I suspect flour tortillas would have be an acceptable substitute. Unless I started to add some other seasonings to the pancakes to make them more special.
I think the recipe deserves future attempts to perfect the grilling method. The plum sauce definitely will be made again.
----- Update ------
I remade the peking duck portion of this recipe. This time I stood the duck upright using a perforated grill pan pan directly over the charcoal of the grill (no indirect heating due to pan). The results were everything I was hoping for. A gorgeous mahogany duck. This may be my new favorite way to grill whole ducks.
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