Peking duck

• 1. Introduction

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  Peking duck, the roast duck of Beijing, once sat at the center of a diplomatic breakthrough. On the 10th of July 1971, Henry Kissinger, the United States secretary of state, was in the Great Hall of the People. It was his first visit to China, and it was secret. The morning talks with Premier Zhou Enlai had ended without a result. At lunch, the delegation was served Peking duck, and it became Kissinger's favourite dish. The next day, the two governments issued a joint statement inviting President Richard Nixon to visit China in 1972. A roast bird had landed at the center of a very important table. What makes a dish so prized that a cook carves it in front of the diners? How do you turn the skin of a duck into something thin and crisp? And how far back does the tradition reach?

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• 2. Imperial Roots

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  In 1330, an inspector of the imperial kitchen named Hu Sihui wrote a roast duck dish into a manual called the Complete Recipes for Dishes and Beverages. The dish carried the name "Kyler Ratilla", written 燒鴨子 in Chinese characters. It was a variation of roast duck prepared for the emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. Roast duck itself was older still, because cooks in China had been roasting ducks since the Southern and Northern dynasties.

  The Peking roast duck that gave the dish its fame took full shape in the later Ming dynasty. By then it was one of the main dishes on imperial court menus. In 1416, the first restaurant devoted to it, Bianyifang, opened in the Xianyukou, close to Qianmen in Beijing.

  Under the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty, from 1736 to 1796, the taste for the dish spread to the upper classes. Poets and scholars wrote about it. A local Beijing poem, "Dūmén zhúzhīcí", contains the line "Fill your plates with roast duck and suckling pig." The ducks behind all this fame came from the canals around Nanjing.

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• 3. Raising the Bird

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  Black feathers and a large frame marked the original Nanjing ducks, which lived in the canals linking that city to the major waterways. When the capital moved to Beijing, more supply barges began to travel in the new capital's region. The barges often spilled water into side-canals, and those canals gave the ducks a habitat. By the time five-spice powder was adopted, Chinese farmers had domesticated a new breed.

  On the traditional schedule, a newly hatched duck spends its first 45 days free-range. Then it is force-fed four times a day for 15-20 days. The result is a bird of 5-7 kilograms, slaughtered after 65 days. This feeding earned the dish another name, "Peking stuffed duck". Another source asks for at least 3.25 kilograms, more than 5.5 millimeters of subcutaneous fat, a well-developed chest, and at least 5.0 percent intramuscular fat.

  Force-feeding exists because ducks grow slowly and because tradition demands a certain fat content. It has a steep cost. About 20 percent of the birds die, and about another 20 percent end up unusable. A duck left alone eats about 200 grams of food a day, yet the force-fed bird must swallow 600 grams.

  Newer broiler-type breeds mature without force-feeding. That spares the animals suffering and saves labor, since one worker can raise 500 force-fed ducks or 5,000 ducks that need no force-feeding. Two main breeds exist today. The fattier one suits those who want the traditional taste. The leaner one has large chest muscles and appeals to younger palates, reaching 3.2 kilograms in 40 days. As of 2021, at least 95 percent of the ducks used in Beijing needed no force-feeding.

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• 4. Preparing the Skin

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  Air is pumped through the neck cavity of the duck, under the skin, to pull the skin away from the fat. This comes after the fattened bird has been killed, plucked, gutted and rinsed thoroughly with water. Next the duck is blanched in boiling water for two to three minutes. Then it is hung up to dry, which tightens the skin.

  While the duck hangs, the cook brushes on a first glaze, a syrup made with honey. The inside of the bird gets one more rinse with water. A second coat follows, a marinade of soy sauce, five-spice powder and more maltose, applied inside and out.

  The duck then rests for 24 hours, either in a cool, dry place or in a refrigerator. Only after that long wait does it go into the oven, where it roasts until the skin turns a shiny brown. Chefs have two traditional ways to manage that roasting, and they could hardly be more different.

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• 5. Two Ovens

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  Brick walls and metal griddles make up the closed oven, called mènlú in Chinese. Bianyifang, the Beijing restaurant, is famous for keeping this tradition alive. The cook burns Gaoliang sorghum straw at the base to preheat the oven. The duck goes in the moment the fire burns out. Then heat circulating inside the brick chamber cooks the meat slowly. Controlling the fuel and the temperature is the main skill. The duck meat blends well with the fat under the skin, so it comes out juicy and tender.

  The open oven was developed in the imperial kitchens during the Qing dynasty. The Quanjude restaurant chain adopted it. It can roast up to 20 ducks at once over an open fire fed with hardwood from peach or pear trees. The ducks hang on hooks above the flames and roast at 270 degrees Celsius for 30-40 minutes. Sometimes the chef uses a pole to swing a duck closer to the fire for intervals of 30 seconds. In this style the fat mostly melts away during cooking, and the skin turns crispy.

  Once the roasted birds come out, the performance moves from the kitchen to the dining room.

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• 6. Carving at the Table

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  Slices of skin arrive first, with sugar and sweet bean sauce for dipping. A traditional Peking duck meal comes in three stages, and the cook carves the bird in front of the guests. The skin is best eaten hot and crisp. Authentic versions serve mostly skin and little meat.

  In the second stage, the meat appears with steamed pancakes and a plate of vegetables, typically julienned cucumber and spring onion. Diners dip slices of duck into the condiments, then wrap them in a pancake with the cucumber and any other fillings. They eat the wrap by hand or with chopsticks.

  The third stage is the carcass, called 鸭架 in Chinese, which is what remains once the choice cuts are gone. Traditionally it goes into a broth with Chinese cabbage and soft tofu. It can also be chopped and stir-fried in sweet bean sauce, or sautéed quickly and served with salt and pepper, known as 椒鹽. Or the restaurant packs it up for customers to take home.

  Whole ducks can also be ordered as takeaway and reheated. In an oven, the duck heats at 150 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes and then at 160 degrees for another 10. On a stove, it is submerged in boiling water and then set on a griddle 70 centimeters above the fire, with the water replaced every 3-4 minutes. The oil method slices the duck thin, holds the pieces in a strainer over a wok of hot oil, and rinses them with the oil several times.

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• 7. Famous Houses

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  The year 1864 saw the founding of Quanjude in Beijing by Yang Quanren, who developed the hung oven for roasting ducks. By the middle of the 20th century, Peking duck had become a national symbol of China, favoured by tourists and diplomats alike. After Zhou Enlai died in 1976, Kissinger returned to Beijing and went back to the duck. Other leaders have eaten it too, among them Cuba's Fidel Castro and the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, and Quanjude in particular has been a favourite with such guests.

  Quanjude and Bianyifang are both centuries-old establishments, and each has its own style. Quanjude is known for the hung oven, while Bianyifang uses the oldest technique, closed oven roasting. Both are known as Lao zihao, which means "old brand name". In 1999, Quanjude was named a China Renowned Trademark.

  Other Beijing restaurants that specialise in the dish include Changan Yihao, Dayali, Siji Minfu, Beijing Xiaowangfu and Dadong Kaoyadian. For many foreign politicians and tourists, a meal of Peking duck has become one of the essential experiences of a visit to China. The dish has also traveled far from Beijing, and some of its new homes changed the rules.

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• 8. Beyond Beijing

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  Duck Chang's Restaurant, established in 1975 in Virginia in the United States, became the first Chinese restaurant to serve Peking duck without 24 hours of advance notice. In 2018, the James Beard Foundation gave Sun Wah BBQ in Chicago, Illinois, its America's Classics award. The announcement specifically cited Sun Wah's three-course "Beijing Duck Feast".

  Crispy aromatic duck, written 香酥鴨 and pronounced xiāng sū yā, is a close relative of Peking duck. It was created in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the twentieth century and remains popular there and in Ireland. The cook marinates the duck with spices, steams it until tender, and then deep fries it until crisp. Compared with Peking duck, the meat has less fat and is drier and crispier.

  Germany has its own version. Some Asian fusion restaurants there serve Knusprige Ente, which is the marinated, deep-fried duck, and sometimes label it Peking-Ente or Pekingente. It arrives with stir-fried vegetables, called Wokgemüse, over fried noodles or rice. That is a long way from skin dipped in sugar at a Beijing table.

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