Starving for some succulent, roasted duck
Print Edition
DUCKS have been roasted in China for centuries. Roast duck, or kaoya in Chinese, is a popular dish for high-end banquets and home-made family dinners alike.
The dish, originally named “shao yazi” , or burned duck, was first mentioned in the “Complete Recipes for Dishes and Beverages” manual, a 1330 cookbook by Hu Sihui, an inspector of the royal kitchen.
As the technique of “burning” a duck developed in the following centuries, especially during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, the term “kao,” as a style of cooking with fire, was coined. With that, the description “kaoya” started to spread.
The term usually refers to local roast duck specialties, such as Nanjing kaoya, Beijing kaoya or Guangdong kaoya. The dishes differ not only in the choice of duck and the roasting technique, but also the art of serving and eating it.
Shanghai Daily is taking a look at three most popular roast duck varieties in China.
Beijing kaoya
If you are in Beijing, eating authentic Beijing kaoya should be just as high up on your to-do list as visiting the Forbidden City. It’s one of China’s national dishes.
There is no official record that indicates when people in Beijing started to roast ducks, but ask any Beijing chef and he will tell you that the roasted duck became a popular dish at the imperial court menus when the third Ming Emperor Zhu Di moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421.
As techniques of roasting duck had fully developed during the Qing Dynasty, Beijing roast duck became a popular dish for the royal society’s dinner parties, which also inspired a masterful art of slicing the duck skin, to be performed right before the diners.
A special farm supply of white-feathered Beijing Duck, called tianya (fed duck), is commonly used for this dish. Newborn ducks are force-fed four times a day to fatten them up to an average of 2.5 kilograms within two months.
Distinct from the method in which the Nanjing roast duck is stuck on a spit over the fire, the Beijing roast duck is hung from a hook and dangles over the roast oven.
Two types of ovens can be used. First, there’s the closed oven, used, for example, in the Pianyifang Restaurant.
The oven was built some 600 years ago, and is heated by burning sorghum stalks. The duck is then placed in the oven immediately after the fire burns out, allowing the duck to be slowly cooked by the heat the oven’s walls have absorbed.
The second method uses a so-called hung oven, which was developed in 1864 by the Quanjude Restaurant. It’s founder designed this oven to roast up to 20 ducks at the same time with an open fired fueled by peach or pear woods. While the ducks are cooked, the chef must use a pole to dangle each duck closer to the fire for 30 seconds intervals from time to time to make sure every part of the duck is evenly roasted and richly browned.
A perfectly roasted Beijing duck is shiny brown with a crunchy skin and succulent meat.
The duck is traditionally carved in front of the diners and served in three stages. First, you eat the skin, dipped in some sugar or garlic sauce. Then, the meat is served with steamed pancakes, scallions, cucumber sticks and dark bean sauce. The remaining fat, meat and bones can be turned into a broth or some customers can take it home.
Guangshi kaoya (Cantonese roast duck)
Cantonese roast duck is a close variation of Nanjing roast duck in the way it is cooked. One difference lies in type of bird, as this dish uses a duck that is usually no more than one month old.
As those ducklings haven’t fully grown, they need to be roasted at a lower temperature to make sure the juices don’t drain and the meat doesn’t get too dry.
Halved lemons are usually stuffed in the bird to support the chest bone and to give the dish a slightly bitter taste.
The whole duck is chopped into bite-sized pieces and served with a kind of plum jam for dipping. The best part of the Cantonese roast duck is said to be the tender ribs connected with a thin layer of meat and fat on the back side.
Nanjing kaoya
The history of Nanjing roast duck can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) when the first Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang decided to set up his capital in the city of Nanjing in southern China. To impress the new emperor, one chef stuck a fork in a whole duck and roasted it over the charcoal grill.
With bronzed crispy skin, the duck meat tasted incredibly tender and came with just the right amount of fat. The emperor seemed to like the dish, thus a new way of cooking duck was introduced to the royal kitchen.
The local black-feathered huya, or lake duck is commonly used for making Nanjing roast duck. To prepare the dish, take out the innards, rub the bird clean, inside and out, and season it with salt and sugar. Then stuff the duck with shallots, prickly ashes and a teaspoonful of sweet flour and sew up the body cavity.
Then slowly slide the duck into a boiling mixture of maltose, soy sauce, liquor and white vinegar. Use a large spoon or ladle to pour the sauce over the duck until it’s fully coated. Then hang the duck by the neck in an airy place to dry.
Finally, put a spit through it and place it over an open rack. Roast from all sides. After the grease starts to perspire outside, coat the duck in one or two layers of sesame oil and put it back on the roast until the skin turns golden brown.
Pour out the liquid from the cavity into a small serving bowl and add honey, table salt and a dip rice vinegar. Chop the duck into bite-sized pieces and pour the gravy on top before serving.
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