Peking Duck

Peking duck is one of the most technically demanding dishes in Chinese cooking, and one of the few that is treated as a formal occasion meal by Chinese diners themselves rather than as an everyday dish dressed up for tourists. The production process takes two days: the slaughtered duck is pumped with air to separate skin from fat, scalded to tighten the skin, coated with a maltose-vinegar glaze, then hung for 24 hours or more in a ventilated space to dry the skin to a near-parchment texture. The dry skin is what allows the subsequent roasting to produce a crackling without burning.

Traditional roasting uses a wood-burning barrel-shaped oven and hanging-method (gua lu) in which the duck is suspended above the fire, receiving radiant heat rather than direct flame. Fruit woods (apple, pear, date) are preferred for their aromatic quality. Commercial restaurants increasingly use gas, which is controllable but lacks the smoke character.

At the table: the chef slices the duck in a prescribed order, first presenting the prized pure-skin sections (served with sugar, to eat as a first course), then thin slices of skin-plus-meat. The ritual is to spread sweet bean sauce (tian mian jiang) on a thin wheat pancake, add a slice of duck, shredded scallion and cucumber matchsticks, roll and eat.

The duck carcass is taken back to the kitchen and typically returns as a soup course. Bianyifang (founded 1416, the oldest surviving duck house) uses a different closed-oven technique; Quanjude (1864) the hanging method. Da Dong, opened 1985, popularised a leaner, more elegant presentation.