Peking Duck in China traditionally uses a freshly roasted duck and served with the meat and skin on plain pancakes. Generally, outside of China it is eaten differently, with only the skin eaten with pancakes and the rest of the duck served over another course or two. Here is my easy way to get a decent tasting three course meal from a roast duck. Continue reading for the first course!

Ingredients
- 1 whole roast duck
- 2 cups of oil
- 1 packet of Peking Duck pancakes
- 1 cucumber
- Hoisin sauce

The first thing to do is buy a nicely roasted duck from a Chinese BBQ restaurant. Remember to tell them you want it whole, not chopped up.

Prepare the cucumber by cutting it into little finger sized pieces. This will be wrapped up in your pancakes. You can put whatever you like, but I recommend you stick with refreshing ingredients so as to balance out the richness of the duck skin. Popular fillings include spring onion (the white part) and chilli.

Fan out the pancakes into a bamboo steamer and steam for a few minutes to warm. While the pancakes are steaming, heat up the oil in a wok. This will take a couple of minutes but a quick test is to stick a wooden chopstick into the oil; if it bubbles away the oil is ready.





Place the duck firmly on a bamboo frying ladle (or dangle on a meat hook) and hold over the wok. Then pour the hot oil over the skin of the duck, making sure to cover all areas a couple of times. This will puff up the skin and make it crispy. Turn the duck over and repeat.



Place the duck onto a chopping board. At this stage, you can also remove the pancakes from the steam if they have been warmed through (they can be left in the steamer though). Using a sharp knife, slice the skin off the duck according to how many pancakes there are (usually 10-12) and place on a plate.

To eat: grab a pancake, smear some Hoisin sauce along the middle of it, add filling ingredients and duck skin and wrap it up!



The next course is a crowd pleaser, promise.