Yesterday my husband had Peking duck at a local Chinese restaurant. I was always under the impression that one had to give advance notice for this dish, as it takes several hours to prepare properly. It arrived in under 30 minutes, the waiter claimed that it was roasted in that time, and it was served with slices of white onion, sauce, and mu shu pancakes.
It was sliced before arriving at the table, and the waiter assembled the duck into the pancakes according to my husband’s preference. This duck was quite dry, rather tough, and tasted more like turkey than duck. In fact, it tasted rather like roasted turkey that has been in the fridge for several days, but that wasn’t packaged well and has partially dried out.
He ate one pancake of the duck, and then we split my dinner of beef with snow peas (absolutely delicious, by the way).
Were we served a frozen turkey meal? We’ve had other meals in this restaurant, and so far we’ve been very happy with it. This was supposed to be half of a duck, and we paid about $13 for it, which I would have thought is a bit on the low side for real Peking duck.
The big giveaway would be white versus dark meat; a turkey breast is light meat, whereas a duck breast is dark. Do you recall which it was?
And there’s no way it was roasted in less than 30 minutes. They could have pre-roasted several ducks and portioned them out as people ordered them, but they didn’t take a raw duck and have it cooked and on your table in that amount of time.
Another possibility, since you say it was sliced before it came to the table. It could have been boneless duck breasts. They could have cooked those in 30 minutes or less, easily. But they shouldn’t have been tough and dried out.
It’s possible they served you rewarmed duck. I’ve had duck that is dry and tough, and I assume it was reheated or held too long in an oven or other warmer. I’ve also had great tender juicy duck, so I assume the tough dry duck is a shortcoming of the cook.
I’ve had it at Quanjude in Beijing three or four times. A place like that roasts the ducks in an extremely large oven room(fire room, really) over a series of open fires. You don’t exactly watch your own duck get roasted, but you do watch them roast duck after duck after duck and it is cool. Takes awhile, too. Perhaps you can watch your own duck come out of the fire and over to you, but I have not.
A place like Quanjude only takes a little time to get it to you because of how many they do.
It’s one of the few places that lived up to expectations. Every time I eat there, it is the best duck I’ve ever eaten and one of the best meals I’ve ever had.
Your place? They probably make a bunch and keep them warm, unless it’s a major place for it.
I’ve only ordered Peking Duck once and got something pretty dried out. I tell myself I’ll pre-order it from a good place someday, but the decision to eat out at a Chinese place comes with too little notice. I’ve had it at an event where there was a buffet of food and it was pretty good. Ordering one ahead of time is on my bucket list though.
This poultry wasn’t as light as turkey breast, but it wasn’t as dark as I remember duck being, either. Also, I don’t care for duck very much, but I DO like turkey, and I rather liked the flavor, or at least I would have liked it had it not been tough and dry.
This place does not appear to be very busy, though that could be because we tend to go during weekdays, a little before the dinner rush, about 4 or 4:30. Bill generally gets off work at 3 or 4, and we like to eat soon after that. So I doubt that this restaurant is churning out mass quantities of duck dishes, though they do have at least a couple of other duck offerings.
Maybe it was just boneless duck breasts, carelessly handled. The thing is, all the other dishes we’ve had from this place have been really, really good. My husband is going to try the stir fry duck soon, and see if he likes it any better.
It’s just the skin you wrap, which has to be crisp and flavorful. Otherwise, it’s old and rewarmed. If you’re the kind who doesn’t want to waste a fat duck and eat just the skin, order it three-way. Have the meat cooked with bean sprouts or mushrooms and nuts, and the bones into a soup.
It takes me at least a day to make peking duck. Two if I’m really in the mood to make the skin very dry before roasting.
I find the most annoying part is making the pancakes. The duck part takes a long time, but it is primarily just hanging out in the garage.
Heh. Up til now, the cats have never exhibited any interest in hanging out in the garage. They have each checked it out, and determined that there’s nothing Interesting in there. This might change if I tried making Peking duck, though. At least two of them would want to keep an eye on the duck. They recognize a whole raw chicken when they see it, and they are willing to take their chances with salmonella.