JT10000 Cooking: Guangxi in NYC Duck

An attempt to recreate the flavor of duck the way my late mother-in-law prepared it.

Qinghua and me at the Killington Stage Race

To cook this without much grief, use a muscovy duck or other low-fat breed of duck. The duck most typically found in supermarkets, Peking duck or Long Island duck, has much more fat and is much less pleasant to cook at home unless you have a great ventilation system -- the fat will burn big-time. Muscovy Duck can be expensive but you can sometimes find reasonably priced ones at Chinese meat markets.

The pickled plums or limes are available in Chinese grocery stores. If you can't find them, substitute a couple tablespoons of plum sauce and reduce the amount of honey to one tablespoon.

1 whole duck, neck and giblets discarded
salt and black pepper
1 cup "not-from-concentrate" or fresh-squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 pickled plums or limes
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seed oil

Clean duck well and sprinkle with salt and pepper inside and out.

Put a couple of cups of water into a deep pot or wok over high heat and bring to a boil for steaming. Place duck on steaming rack inside pot/wok and cover. Steam duck for 45 minutes, adding water to pot as needed.

Meanwhile, make the glaze for the duck. Use food mill or food processor to puree the limes or plums (with pit removed), or chop them very fine. Put limes/plums, soy sauce, honey and fruit juices into small pot and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for half an hour until consistency of a thin syrup. Take off heat, add sesame oil and set aside mixture.

Heat oven to 425F. When duck is done steaming, place it on rack in oven and roast 15 minutes.

Baste with two-thirds of the glaze. Cook another 5 minutes and baste with remaining glaze. Cook another couple minutes, remove from oven and let it rest for five minutes before serving.