Photo: Zheng Zhou · CC BY-SA 4.0
Peking Duck (Lacquered Roast Duck with Pancakes)
A whole duck scalded to tighten the skin, painted with maltose water, dried for a day and then roasted, so the skin shatters like glass inside a thin pancake. The crispness comes from the drying, not the roasting — with moisture left on the surface, no oven setting saves it from turning to leather.
Ingredients
- Duck
- whole duck · 2-2.5kg; trim the neck and tail fat1 pc
- leek · for the cavity1 stalk
- ginger · thick slices, for the cavity30 g
- star anise · for the cavity2 pcs
- salt · inside only — never on the skin1 tsp
- Scald and glaze
- boiling water · poured over the skin several times2 L
- maltose · or corn syrup or honey; it makes the colour and the glassy surface2 tbsp
- hot water · to loosen the maltose4 tbsp
- vinegar · helps the skin dry1 tbsp
- Shaoxing wine1 tbsp
- Pancakes (or shop-bought wrappers)
- plain flour200 g
- boiling water · a hot-water dough is what rolls out thin120 ml
- sesame oil · brushed between each pair1 tbsp
- To serve
- tianmianjiang · sweet bean sauce; hoisin is the usual substitute4 tbsp
- leek · white part only, in 5cm julienne2 stalks
- cucumber · seeded and julienned1 pc
- sugar · optional, for dipping skin on its own1 tsp
Steps
- ⏲ 15 min
Trim the neck and tail fat, rinse the cavity and pat everything dry. Keep the skin unbroken — fat leaks out of any tear and flattens the skin there.
- ⏲ 5 min
Stand the duck in the sink and pour boiling water over the whole skin three or four times. It visibly tightens and smooths. That contraction is what later lets the skin lift away from the meat.
- ⏲ 5 min
Dissolve the maltose in hot water with the vinegar and wine, and brush a thin coat over the whole skin. A thick coat simply burns before the duck is done.
Hang the duck, or set it on a rack, and dry it in the fridge for 12-24 hours. The skin should end up papery, giving a light tap when you flick it with a nail. This step is the entire crispness of the dish.
- ⏲ 30 min
Pancake dough: pour boiling water into the flour, stir, and once it is cool enough to handle knead 5 minutes and rest 30 minutes covered. The hot water suppresses the gluten, which is what lets it roll thin.
- ⏲ 30 min
Divide into 20, brush sesame oil between pairs and roll each pair thin together; cook 30 seconds a side in a dry pan and peel them apart. Cooking them paired is the trick to thin, soft pancakes.
- ⏲ 15 min
Heat the oven to 200°C. Put the leek, ginger, star anise and salt in the cavity, close it with a skewer, and set the duck breast up.
- ⏲ 30 min
Roast 30 minutes at 200°C, which is when the skin puffs and takes colour.
- ⏲ 45 min
Drop to 170°C for 40-50 minutes, turning the duck breast-down once so the fat renders evenly. Cover with foil if it is colouring too fast.
- ⏲ 10 min
Finish at 220°C for 8-10 minutes. This is where the skin turns to glass, and also where it burns, so do not leave the oven.
- ⏲ 10 min
Rest 10 minutes. Lift the skin off in broad pieces and plate it separately, then slice the meat thin. Beijing serves skin and meat apart because skin against moist meat softens within minutes.
- ⏲ 5 min
Spread a pancake with tianmianjiang, add leek, cucumber, skin and meat, and roll. Try the first piece of skin on its own, dipped in sugar — that is where the day of drying shows most clearly.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- Half a duck, or duck legs. If a whole duck is hard to find or the oven is
small, the method holds for legs and breast: same scald, glaze, dry and high-heat finish, roughly half the roasting time.
- Skin and meat apart. The serious restaurants serve the skin on its own and use
the meat in a stir-fry or soup. At home, simply plating skin and meat on separate dishes keeps the skin crisp far longer.
- Instead of making pancakes, steam thin shop-bought wrappers for 5 minutes, or
use flour tortillas. Thick wrappers bury the texture you spent a day building.
- The carcass simmered 40 minutes with leek and ginger makes a good broth; add
napa cabbage and tofu and it is a meal.
- Char siu is the other glossy Chinese roast, and it works the
opposite way: char siu is about driving marinade in, Peking duck is about driving moisture out.
Tips
- The crispness is made in the fridge, not the oven. With moisture on the
surface, the skin's temperature stalls at 100°C while that water boils off, and nothing glassy can form in that state (dry heat and moist heat).
- Never salt the skin. Salt pulls moisture back to the surface. The cavity and
the sauce carry the seasoning.
- Maltose does the colour and the surface. The sugar browns into a glassy film,
and applying it thinly is what keeps it from burning (browning and Maillard).
- Do not skip the boiling water. It takes thirty seconds, and without that
contraction the skin bonds to the meat and will not lift off.
- The pancakes want a hot-water dough. Cold water leaves the gluten intact, and
they come out thick and chewy (dough and gluten).
- Rest ten minutes before carving. Cut immediately and juice runs out and under
the skin (cooking meat and resting).
- Scheduling: scald and glaze one evening, roast the next. That is the version of
this recipe that fits a real week.
The basics behind this dish
- Browning and the Maillard ReactionMeat fails to brown for one of three reasons: it is wet, the pan is cool, or you put too much in at once. Plus how the brown film stuck to the pan becomes your sauce.
- Cooking Meat: Temperature, Resting, and Cutting Against the GrainDoneness is a core temperature, not a number of minutes. What resting actually does, how to handle a thick cut, and why the direction you slice changes the texture.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
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