Where is the best roast duck in China?

Text: Wei Shuihua

Photo: Pixabay

Both in the East and the West, ducks seem to be the next best fowl.

Hans Biederman's Dictionary of World Cultural Symbols says: "The duck (duck), aquatic bird, fowl, is less important symbolically than the goose. First hunted and then domesticated (in ancient Egypt to 1500 B.C.), the mallard duck often appears in works of art with implied erotic connotations, the precise nature of which has not been determined."

And Yuan Mei said in "With the Garden Food List - Feathered Clan List", "Chicken has the greatest merit, and all dishes rely on it. Make the leader of the feather family of the first, and other birds attached to it." Duck, is the main incidental role.

The reason for this is that Westerners are looking for texture, so the goose, which has thick meat and a dense texture, takes precedence. At the same time, geese, like cows and sheep, are also herbivores, which is more than omnivorous chickens and ducks can be eaten raw advantage, in the Western world everything from the simple culinary concept, ducks will naturally become an alternative to geese.

The Oriental pursuit of flavor, sinewy bones, more resistant to cooking, so that the flavor material slowly seeped out of the chicken became the first choice. In China, just white boiled and diced chicken, there are white cut chicken, white chopped chicken, white chopped chicken, white slaughtered chicken, no less than ten kinds of call. The role of a bowl of chicken soup, but also beyond the food itself, is the Chinese people's eyes have a disease cure, no disease strong medicine.

In contrast, duck, which is not prominent in all aspects, seems to inevitably occupy a supporting role. But to put it another way, duck has the most balanced ratio of fat, protein, and bone to sinew of any poultry ingredient, which makes it especially good for barbecuing, with the Meladic reaction and dry distillation bringing crispy skin, bright color, and oily texture. By contrast, the less flavorful roast goose and the fat-poor roast chicken pale in comparison.

Roasted ducks with their own distinctive flavors are found in a wide range of regions in China, especially those that have historically been economically developed and produced a high number of literati and scholars. I'm afraid this has nothing to do with the duck's middle-of-the-road status, which alludes to the traditional Chinese literati view of the world.

No:1?One

The history of Chinese people eating roast duck dates back to prehistory.

In a way, Chinese food is the art of fire. And barbecuing, or using air as the medium of fire, is the most primitive method of cooking. It is much older than branding with slate as the medium, frying with oil as the medium, boiling with water as the medium and steaming with steam as the medium.

As late as the Western Han Dynasty, the technology of barbecuing was already very mature, and there are stone images of grilled lamb kebabs in the entire collection of Han Dynasty Portraits. Mawangdui No. 1 tomb of the Han Dynasty also unearthed a fan for barbecuing meat and information about "ox roast", "canine rib roast", "chicken roast" and so on. This is obviously more than the primitive people to fire as a medium of simple cooking ingredients, but rose to the cooking technology and the interest of life interesting records.

As it happens, ducks were common birds in a wide area of central and eastern China in ancient times. New-period ceramic ducks unearthed in Hemudu, Zhejiang Province, and Wuping, Fujian Province, are 5,000 years old, and archaeological sites in Jurong, Jiangsu Province, Pingquan, Hebei Province, and Zhengzhou, Henan Province, have all unearthed 4,000-year-old bronze duck zuns and even duck eggs.

While most of the duck meat consumed at the time was wild duck, the subcutaneous fat was not enough, the taste was not as good as domestic duck, and it was the kind of inferior roasted duck that Liang Shiqiu despised as having "skin, meat and no oil". But whatever the case, roast duck has become a tradition, rooted in Chinese life.

The 6th-century book Qi Min Yao Shu, written by Jia Si Fo, a native of the Northern Wei Dynasty, may be the earliest record of roasted duck. The book describes raising ducks "for cooks, sub ducks for sixty or seventy days, good." Roasted duck is known as "brisket roast duck", the practice is "fat duck, net treatment wash, boneless for sliced meat, wine five, fish sauce five, ginger, green onions, orange peel half, soy sauce five, and, impregnated with a cook for a long time, will be in the sizzling."

Simple translation: roast duck should be used to raise sixty or seventy days for good, choose fat, wash and cut into pieces, with wine, fish sauce and onion, ginger, orange peel soy sauce marinade a meal time, and then roasted.

That's a lot.

Not coincidentally, the same period of the Southern Dynasties Yu Jong wrote the "book of food treasures," also appeared in the words "roast duck," which is likely to be a whole barbecued duck, has begun to take on the shape of the modern roast duck.

No:2?II

In fact, roast duck has not only witnessed the evolution of China's culinary culture, but also condensed the social customs of different periods. The Tang dynasty people Zhang river gull in the "dynasty and wild佥載" book recorded in detail at the time of the popular "open fire dark flavor roast duck": the duck in a special cage, and then put the cage on a burning hot charcoal fire basin, the cage outside the basin of a sauce and vinegar, the duck was roasted inside the cage and hot and thirsty, desperately drink the cage outside the basin of the seasoning sauce. A long time, the duck hair burns off, duck skin and meat barbecue cooked.

As a dynasty with nomadic blood and a reverence for force, the roasted live ducks of the Tang Dynasty, compared to the North and South Dynasties, where the literary fortunes flourished, may have seemed rough, barbaric and brutal, but the ingenuity it demonstrated reflected, on the other hand, progress in the culinary arts.

By the time of the two highly economically advanced Song dynasties, the style of roast duck was further elevated. In "Tokyo Meng Hua Lu" and "Meng Liang Lu," it is recorded that a kind of "duck" was sold in restaurants in Kaifeng and Hangzhou. In the Wu language, the word "Yi" was used to describe the sweltering summer heat of the south of the Yangtze River. Literally, the word "Yi" in the food most likely refers to roasting in a closed environment -- which is apparently what roast duck in a casserole oven looks like today.

The closed oven maintains a more constant temperature, allowing the duck to be more evenly colored and the meat to be more sparse; the smoke from the barbecue repeatedly returns to the oven, giving the duck a smoky flavor; and the prolonged simmering process allows the duck to be rich in juices and moist with oil, without being faggy.

No:3?three

By the early Ming Dynasty at the latest, the technique of roast duck in the economically developed areas of Jiangnan had become quite mature. Zhu Yuanzhang was the capital of Nanjing, and many local folklore legends point to the inextricable link between the commoner emperor and Nanjing duck.

The legend may not be true, but regardless of class, regardless of social status, everyone's favorite roast duck fashion has been truly recorded in the notes of various literati.

Yongle years, Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, Beijing streets also hung up the "Jinling sliced duck" signboard. Said Emperor Zhu personally abducted the duck masters "abducted" to Beijing, I'm afraid a little far-fetched. The emperor's day-to-day business, which have time to care about the small people's duck business. But the political center of the north, so that the dietary trends also migrated, but can be seen in the history of the evolution.

After the eight banners entered the country, Nanjing's status as the capital was canceled. On the contrary, the Manchu aristocrats, fearing a wave of anti-Qing and Ming movements, deliberately reduced the status of Nanjing in the minds of the Chu Ming remnants of the "Dragon's Sacred Land".

This shift in the political winds, the most direct expression, is the streets of Beijing, "Jinling sliced duck" signboard into the "Peking Duck", and over time, the majority of people also feel that the roast duck is a regional specialty of the original Beijing.

Where has such a duck, which has been passed down through the millennia, left its mark and survived to this day?

Beijing: Hanger Roast Duck

|Northern Authenticity |

While Peking Duck was born out of the Nanking Duck, it has to be said that centuries have seen a huge evolution in its evolution.

First, there's the practice. While the Nanjing duck is characterized by a stewed-oven style inherited from the Southern Song Dynasty, the Peking duck has evolved into a hanging-oven style represented by Quanjude. The so-called hanging oven means that the oven does not have a door, and the duck is sent into the oven hanging on a long picket rod, which can be turned over and viewed at any time to ensure even heat.

In addition, the hanging stove duck with an open fire, the fuel is no smoke of the fruit wood, the fire is strong, so the subcutaneous fat oil rate is high, the duck skin crispy. There are also people who especially think that hanging stove duck melting oil is not enough, the invention of no stove barbecue duck. Although the duck oil did melt sufficiently, but the duck meat has become old firewood, downgrade.

The unique way of eating Peking duck: noodle sauce, scallions, shredded water radish, shredded cucumber, and skinned duck meat rolled in lotus-leaf pancakes derives on the one hand from the craftsmanship of the masters of the Lu cuisine that influenced the capital's diet the most -- scallions, noodle sauce, and noodle pancakes are all common side dishes in Shandong; and on the other hand, it's tailor-made for charred and crispy hung-oven duck. The scallions and vegetables balance the grease, the noodle sauce provides sweet and fresh flavors, and the noodle cakes give the roast duck a ritualistic eating experience and provide a hunger-padding starch.

In the past two years, the hottest roast duck in the capital has been Da Dong, which has overshadowed all the old favorites. In fact, Da Dong duck does have a lot of innovations in eating methods, such as dipping the skin in sugar, dipping the duck meat in garlic, and sandwiching slices of roast duck with a hamburger, but there is also the suspicion of jacking up the price of the duck, which makes Peking duck more and more abominable as banquet food away from the common people's pyrotechnics.

In fact, Da Dong roast duck itself, is also a typical Beijing-style duck, and there is not much technological innovation breakthroughs.

Weifang, Shandong: Mizhou roast duck

|Roast duck mom |

If the Nanjing duck is the "father" of the Beijing duck, then Shandong Lu Cuisine, undoubtedly the Beijing duck "mother".

Most of the raw materials for Peking duck, including the duck, seasonings, pastry and fruit wood, come from Shandong. The Lu cuisine masters certainly wouldn't let all the good local ingredients be shipped to the capital. For example, the famous Mizhou roast duck, can be called the Shandong roast duck play.

Mizhou is the former name of the city of Zhucheng in Weifang, which was the hometown of Liu Yong, the "Prime Minister Liu Luoban. In addition to producing literati, it also produces chefs, and it has been said that Zhucheng's position in the Shandong and Jiaodong cuisines is like that of Shunde in Cantonese cuisine, as evidenced by its flavor.

The flavor of Mizhou roast duck is not much different from Beijing hanging duck, the most distinctive feature is that the chefs of the Lu Cuisine can roast duck with a variety of "by-products" to make a "full roast duck feast": thick duck breast used to dry stir-frying, duck blood coagulation sliced and fried leeks, Duck tongue and mountain mushrooms with braised, duck intestines stir-fried, duck oil steamed Mandarin fish, duck soup slippery sea cucumber ...... a wide range of different.

Kaifeng, Henan: Bianjing Roast Duck

|Grandfather Roast Duck |

Kaifeng's Bianjing Roast Duck is perhaps the most historic roast duck in existence, restoring the tradition of "Yi Yi Duck" from the Northern Song Dynasty's "Tokyo Dreaming Book", and preserving most of the characteristics of the ducks from the ancient stewing oven.

The Bianjing Roast Duck is roasted with jujube charcoal, which is different from the fast-burning pear wood, apple wood and other fruit wood, and the wood is dense and rich in oil, so there will be smoke and jujube aroma seeping out in the roasting process. The process of roasting in the casserole is actually the process of smoking, and the finished duck skin is date-red in color, without the sporadic charcoal chips of hanging oven roasting. The skin is not detached from the meat, and when you bite into it, you can eat the gelatinous fat underneath the skin. For those who are not afraid of oil, this kind of duck roasted in a stewed oven is much more savory than duck roasted in a hanging oven.

Another test of the success or failure of the duck is the texture of the duck breast. A good stewed duck consumes less water, and has the effect of baking and steaming, so the duck meat is loose and has a meat fluffy texture. Especially thick duck breast meat, to be like freshly baked steamed buns as warm, to be regarded as a successful casserole duck.

Leshan, Sichuan: Sweet-skinned duck

| Better than roast duck |

Strictly speaking, sweet-skinned duck can't actually be considered roast duck.

But the duck, which is brined and then deep-fried, does have an infinitely similar texture to roast duck and is another interpretation of Chinese roast duck.

The practice of sweet-skinned duck is actually not much different from ordinary brined duck. Icing sugar is stir-fried to a sugar color, and spices are added to make a marinade to brine. After brining the duck has actually been very tasty, the skin is soft and sticky, the duck meat on the mouth, but the heavy seasoning of the Sichuan people especially suspected that its flavor is not enough, and then brine the duck to control the dry water, with the boiling oil repeatedly burned until the skin crispy and the color of the brownish-red until.

The final step is the key to sweet-skinned duck: while the oil on the surface of the skin is warm and not yet cool, brush on the caramel. This gives the duck skin a reddish color and crispy texture, and even after it cools, it doesn't soften back up. The sweet flavor is not unlike the roast duck skin dipped in white sugar produced by Da Dong.

Sichuan people are very particular about sweet-skinned ducks, which should only be dipped in oil and not deep-fried in a pot. In fact, in order to cook at a lower temperature, only the crispy skin of the duck, without affecting the juiciness of the duck meat. Its cooking idea and originated from the Central Plains of the roast duck is extremely close, only the people of the Sichuan basin with a more intense treatment, which is another typical example of the expression of the Chinese diet one multi-faceted.

Hefei, Anhui province: Luzhou roast duck

|Roasted duck has an ancient flavor |

In order to show off the duck's "ancient flavor," places like to use the old name of the place as its prefix. Many of the duck restaurants on the streets of Beijing are called "Beiping Duck", the duck in Zhucheng is called "Mizhou Duck", and the duck in Nanjing is called "Jinling Sliced Duck".

Of course, including Hefei's "Luzhou roast duck".

As the capital of Anhui Province, Hefei has always been inextricably linked to its former capital Nanjing. Roast duck is one of them. Like the Nanjing duck, the legend of the Luzhou duck often points to Zhu Yuanzhang, a native of Anhui.

But unlike the famous Peking and Nanjing ducks, Luzhou roast duck takes a more approachable route. There are few people living in Hefei who haven't eaten at the long-established Luzhou Roast Duck restaurant. And the store's biggest specialty is not the duck itself, but the duck oil soup dumplings and duck oil baklava made with duck oil, a byproduct of the duck, as the main ingredient.

The so-called duck oil soup dumplings are small dumplings stuffed with roast duck oil instead of meat jelly; the duck oil baklava is a thousand-layer baklava made with duck oil shortening, which contains the rich flavor of the roast duck, and the same animal fats, which is much better than the butter shortening of the kosher and lard shortening of the wife's cake.

Nanjing, Jiangsu province: Xingdian roast duck

||Pine |

Crudely dividing China's roast duck into north and south, the two schools of thought can only be Nanjing and Beijing.

But the most representative of Nanjing duck is the Xingdian town in Jiangpu district.

Xingdian Town is a Hui people living in the area, engaged in the catering industry is the main means of livelihood for Hui people. Since the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the Muslims in Xindian have been famous for their cooked food, especially the halal roast duck.

Halal food is characterized by a focus on hygiene. After the cuffs are gutted and slaughtered, in addition to purifying the hair, they are repeatedly rinsed and salted to remove blood stains until the blood is invisible to the naked eye. This kind of almost cleanliness of the cleaning process, is the general restaurant is difficult to do.

The finished Singtian Halal Roast Duck, with its skin the color of red to black water chestnuts, is cut with a knife to see the oil. Nanjing duck eating method is generally not as complicated as Beijing duck, cut pieces of plate directly on the table, on a bowl of white rice to eat, its aroma is incomparable; heavy taste, with the roast duck process of natural baked juice, blended with soy sauce, sugar and vinegar to do the brine for dipping, there is a unique pine nut flavor.

If you use roast duck brine to mix rice, it's even better.

Chenzhou, Hunan: Polygonal Roast Duck

|Southbound Hub |

Chenzhou, Hunan, is connected to Shaoguan, Guangdong, and geographically, it already belongs to the Pearl River Delta region south of the South China Sea.

But the town of Tate River, which is under the jurisdiction of Chenzhou, is known locally as "Little Nanjing". In addition to the complex water network consisting of the Polygon River, Lei River and Xiang River, making it an important water transportation hub, and Nanjing has **** the same pattern, the specialty here - roast duck, but also with the Nanjing duck has a great deal of similarity.

The reason for this goes back to the early Ming Dynasty. In order to strengthen his control over the south and purge the remnants of the late Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang set up Chenzhou Prefecture in the southern part of Hunan after unification and stationed a large number of soldiers there. The art of roast duck may have also reached Chenzhou at that time, which in turn spread from this gateway to the South Ridge, influencing later roast ducks in Guangdong and Yunnan.

Additionally, it is rumored that Beijing Cheap Square Roast Duck was founded by He Mengchun, a retired minister of the Ministry of Justice during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty. He Mengchun was also a native of Chenzhou, Hunan province, so if the legend is true, then the real ancestor of Peking duck should be Chenzhou duck.

The practice of eating roast duck in Polygon River is roughly the same as that of duck in Nanjing, and the only thing that needs special attention is that the locals eat the duck with a kind of white dew wine. The shape of this wine, the flavor of slightly sweet rice wine, has a refreshing effect, in the absence of green onions, no lotus leaf cake in front of the southern style of roast duck, white dew wine may be the best meal accompaniment.

Guangzhou, Guangdong: Cantonese-style roast duck

|The Ultimate Taste |

What makes a roast duck a roast duck is that it is different from Peking and Nanjing ducks, from the way it is made to the way it is eaten.

Starting with the ingredients, roast ducks from other regions are made with fatty stuffed ducks, but Cantonese roast duck uses young ducks with white feathers that have been around for a month, which is actually a trope for roasted suckling pig, pursuing the tenderness of the duck meat.

Roasted wood also have to pay attention to, Canton style roast duck with neither fire fierce fruit wood, nor smoked mainly date wood, twenty on the spot Lychee wood, pine wood. Half-roasted half-smoked, to get the composite flavor.

Material sauce is the soul of Cantonese roast duck, the rose dew, yellow wine, five-spice powder, honey, white vinegar, meat and bone broth and other ingredients into the duck's stomach, carefully sewn with needle and thread. The result is a kind of roasted outside and boiled inside, with flavor to the meat. Cantonese people often think that Peking duck "has a ducky flavor when it cools down, but Cantonese roast duck is still delicious when it cools down," because the sauce has been flavored.

From the positioning of the ingredients, Peking duck is often regarded as a big dish for high-class banquets, while Cantonese roast duck is a flavorful food in the stalls. A few pieces of roast duck spread on rice, dripping a spoonful of sauce, is a bowl of top full of roast duck rice; if you use the duck rack to simmer the soup, put a handful of rice noodles, and then with two pieces of duck meat, it is the domination of the night stalls of the roast duck noodle.

Kunming, Yunnan: Yiliang Roast Duck

|Nantian Flavor |

There are two kinds of roast duck signs on the streets of Kunming: Yiliang Roast Duck and Dianyi Roast Duck, which are actually the same thing.

Folklore has it that Yunnan's roast duck was first created by the family cook of Fu Youde, the general who conquered the south under Zhu Yuanzhang, who stayed in Yiliang County under Kunming.

The legend may not be credible, in fact, Yiliang County production of roast duck, the earliest documented history from the early Qing Dynasty. With the Yunnan-Guizhou region as the last area of resistance to the Southern Ming regime, it's not hard to kick around the idea that the locals were using roast duck, the food most representative of the Ming and Zhu regimes, as a way of subtly reminiscing about the previous dynasty.

It's roast duck, but Yiliang roast duck is made in a way that's closer to Cantonese roast duck: one-month-old tender ducks, roasted over an open fire and eaten in chunks.

Because Kunming, with an altitude of more than 2,000 meters, is a plateau region, the boiling point of liquids is low. So compared to the plains, it takes longer and lower temperatures to finish the duck, so the meat of Yiliang duck also has a crispy texture that's very different from other regions.

Good Yiliang duck doesn't need to be cut, just lift the leg and shake it, and the meat and bones will naturally come apart. The flavor is also evident in this detail.

END

The best way to eat

At the end of the movie "A World Without Thieves," Liu Ruoying weeps as she eats roast duck alone, making it the movie's most iconic shot.

Chinese food retains the tradition of sharing a meal. It's lonely to think about eating hot pots, roast ducks and the like all by yourself.

So, whether it is the northern school of roast duck, or forget the southern school of roast duck, the best way to eat, of course, is three or five friends, pushing cups, shouting, a table of duck necks, duck skin, duck breasts, gizzards, duck tongue, duck claws, duck wings, duck legs to gnaw a clean only good.