Crispy duck with hoisin sauce and pancakes is one of my absolute all time favorite meals in the whole whole world. The crispy shard like skin, the tasty morsels of duck and the sweet sticky taste of the hoisin, all wrapped up with cucumbers and spring onions in a wafer thin pancake . Nothing could be better, but I have yet to ever eat it here in Korea. I’ve had it on visits to China of course, and I can’t wait to go to the crispy duck capital of the world this Christmas but I couldn’t wait until then for my next fix. About a week or two ago I found out that hoisin sauce is available here in Korea and it’s been hiding in plain sight in dear old Homeplus. How many times have I brought jars back from home only to have them disappear from my life in mere days, when there was ample stock here in the peninsula. I could kick myself indeed. For future reference, this is what the jar looks like, so go forth and stock your cupboard full of the Chinese saucy goodness.
The duck was very easy to find and pretty darn cheap to be frank. I got it at my local Korean supermarket for about 12,000. Not bad considering the size of it. Ducks are called 오리 and are usually located just next to the chickens. The best thing about cooking your own duck is the lovely duck fat you can pour away and use for making the best roast potatoes in the world!
The last item on the list I was sadly unable to find, Those blessed little pancake wrappers still elude me, so I just used small burrito wrappers instead but you could make some yourself easily enough. I, to be frank just couldn’t be arsed, it was a week night dinner which was little to no effort, plus the burrito wrappers reminded of my favourite sandwich from Marks and Spencer’s anyhow.
Ingredients
1 duck
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of sesame seed oil
4 tablespoons of Chinese 5 spice
An inch of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
A good pinch of salt & pepper
1 pack of burritos wrappers
1 jar of sauce
1 cucumber
1 bunch of spring onions
Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius, and make the marinade for the duck by grating the ginger and garlic, then combining with the Chinese 5 spice, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, salt, and pepper in a jar and giving it a good whisk. Rub the marinade all over the duck so it is covered. You can also pop a knob of garlic and ginger inside the duck to give extra flavour.
2. Cook the duck for about 2 hours, re-basting intermittently with the marinade. Also don’t forget to pour away the duck fat and save for later. After two hours the duck should be cooked, check by inserting a skewer into the fattest part of the duck and see if the juices run clear, if it’s not done keep cooking and checking every 30 minutes. The meat should come away from the bones fairly easily. When the duck is cooked, crank up the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and cook for a further 20 minutes to make the skin really crispy.
3. While the skin is crisping on the last 20 minutes, slice your cucumber and spring onions, warm or cook your pancakes, and open that jar of hoisin sauce.
4. When the duck is ready pull the meat from the bones and use two forks to shred it into pieces. Serve with your accompaniments and devour, it’s ducking delicious!
