Peking duck

I like to lurk

More like $20-30 if you're not buying from some feces-infested rathole.

Don't use an air compressor for food preparation unless you enjoy eating oil.

There's something about them I can't handle
I think it's the grease or fat. Makes my stomach feel weird. Like a bunch of gas is bubbling inside.

What if it's an oil-less compressor? You know there are many types of those, right?

Some things are worth cooking at home, some aren't. We all make our decisions as to which are which. For example I don't deep fry at home because deep fried food is cheap and widely available, so I just get it out. Also, as a home cook my primary concern is cooking delicious day to day food I can eat all the time without wrecking my health or my budget. When it comes to dishes involving elaborate preparation I'm happy to pay someone else to cook them for me.

where are you heading fellow kraut? if its peking go to siji minfu

I had my best peking duck in Beijing, near nanluoguxiang. Even though this hutong is one of the most touristic places in Beijing, the food is absolutely astonishing there. I think we payed 1200¥ for four people. It is a restaurant of michelin star chef's wife. Of course he's french, she's chinese.

When you come in the chef is gonna take a glance of you, ask if you're vegan and about the allergies, maybe chat few minutes. Then he proceeds to choose and start preparing the food for you. Everything there (I think eight or ten small dishes) was absolutely wonderful, but peking duck is what I remember best. Okay, after silver ears (chinese white mushroom), these just cannot be beaten by anything.

I'm sorry that english is not my native language, so I can't really talk about food how I would normally, but this place had showed me what peking duck is supposed to be. This version was a bit unorthodox, the pancake was at the sides of small pieces of duck. Previous three dishes were all just to prepare our tongues for peking duck*

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The thing is, that you can't eat peking duck outside of China. We had some threads about authenticity of american chinese kitchen and sadly I know what Veeky Forums thinks about the topic. But this special breed of duck (each should be 65 days old) will taste very differently because whole life it's force fed black soya paste, in preperation for the dish, which in this version used light soya or probably mixture of both, but with light soya in the spotlight. The meat was very delicate, but any high-end duck could be like that. The most important thing is perfect balance between the many tastes of this dish, and the fact, that they do not blend into one, but rather enhance one another. You can feel that they are very separate, but create one being, and even the sweetness was just in it's place. This all is the result of the form of peking duck - the pancake, the herbs, the sweet bean paste, the sauce and different layers of meat have their own roles in the composition, each being different. The texture was also a huge deal in there, sadly I don't know how to describe it in english. The duck is very delicate and creates it's own layers. It is not soft, but the pancake is. The skin of the bird is crisp, chinese believe that it's the most imporant part of this meal and the way to recognize a proper one.

I had eaten this four years ago, and still I remember the taste extremely well. I visited Beijing few times in this time, but the restaurant was closed every time for the duration of my stay. Very bad luck. I hear that it's open again.

Sorry for this microblog. Answering your question, op, I believe it is woth it.

*in chinese kitchen matching dishes is very imporant - of course it is always, with any food, but you always eat many dishes at one sitting in china. For everyday meal it's usually just the number of people eating + one or two (everybody eats together), but on the occasion it can be much more.

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Wait, now their written recipes are behind a paywall? Fucking hell.

>1200¥

Dumb American here, please convert your pesos or whatever.

ancient chinese secret

fried duck saturated with msg is succulent

That would be around 200 dollars.

It is expensive for china, you can eat in cheap restaurants for 10¥.

>¥

This just confuses me since I always read it as Yen.

Yes, I guess it's better to just use the symbol 元 for chinese money. Both are correct though.

Quacky!? What have they dided to you?!

What seasonings are usually on it?

woodsmoke and salt if I remember correctly, it's a celebration of the meat itself, like a really good steak

that being said, it's usually rolled up in a thin crepe-thing with sauce and veggies at the table, so you could call those the spices

It's usually 10 bucks for half a duck but Peking Duck is served without the bones, just the skin and meat which is why restaurants charge a lot more. I'll take a duck wonton noodle soup over Peking Duck any day.