Chinese whole roasted duck with homemade pancakes

Serves 2 very greedy people or 4 if you have other dishes

For the duck:
1 litre of water
3 tablespoons honey
1 orange, sliced (or if you have dried orange peel, put about 2 of those in to substitute)
3 tablespoon dark soy
150 ml tsao tsing wine
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice + extra
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 star anise
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 slices of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
Salt

For the pancakes:
285g plain flour
250 - 270ml very hot water
Sesame oil

To serve:
Sliced cucumbers
Sliced spring onions
Hoisin sauce

Equipment:
Meat hook ( I actually don't have one so I MacGyver-ed it with a metal clothes hanger)

1. Wash the duck thoroughly, plus inside the cavity. Pat dry.

2. In a large pot with 1 litre of water, add the honey, orange, soy, wine,  1/2 teaspoon of five spice, pepper, 1 star anise, cinnamon, 2 slices of ginger and 1 clove of garlic. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer for 10-20 mins.

3. Cut off the feet and wings off the duck (I didn't because I like those bits) Hook the duck on the head end and hold it on top of the pot. Turn up the heat - it has to be really hot. Using a ladle, baste the whole duck in hot stock, letting the stock run back down into pot the till the skin is slightly dark yellow. Reserve the liquid (optional if you can't find hoisin sauce).

4. Hang it to dry for 5 hours or over night, in front of a fan. After 5 hours the skin should feel very tight, shiny and dry.

My husband, just hanging out with our duck

5. Season the duck inside with salt, pepper, a pinch of five spice, a pinch of cinnamon, one star anise, 2 slices of ginger, and 2 cloves of garlic. Don't season the skin. Preheat the oven to 240 degrees Celsius.

6.  Remove the hook and place the duck on a rack with a tray under it filled with 150ml of water. Roast the duck at 240 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes, then lower to 180 degrees Celsius for 1 hour 10 minutes. Halfway through I wrapped the feet and tips of the wings in foil so they won't get burnt. If you've cut them before roasting then you don't need to do this step.

7. While the duck is in the oven, make the pancakes. (Or you can make this while the duck is hanging out to dry) In a bowl, stir in the hot water into the flour until it's absorbed. Knead for about 5-10 minutes until it's smooth. Cover and rest for half hour. It should look like this:

8. After 30 minutes, take it out of the bowl and knead it again for a minute. If it's sticky, dust a bit of flour. Roll into a cylinder 18 inch long by 1 inch. Cut into 1 inch segments. It should make about 18.

9. Roll two segments at a time into two balls. Take one of the balls and dip the bottom part into sesame oil and then put that on top of the other ball. Roll them out into 6 inch circles. Be careful not to seal the outside too much. Use some flour to dust if it gets too sticky.

10. Cook in a dry pan on low heat until it's dry and slightly browned. Let it cool and then carefully separate the two pancakes.

11. I couldn't find hoisin sauce at my convenient store so I had to make my own sauce. I used the basting liquid and reduced it till it was syrupy, then thickened it with some cornflour mixed with water. If you can find hoisin sauce, then skip this step.

12. Remove the duck from the oven and allow it to rest, uncovered for about 20-30 minutes. Slice the duck and serve with pancakes, cucumbers, spring onions and sauce.

* The ducks in Singapore markets are not very meaty. My mother says it's because the sellers save the biggest ones for the hawkers and the restaurants. I don't know what it's like in other countries though! 

If you are able to get real chummy with your poultry seller and get him to save you a big one, that would be cool. But a normal duck from the supermarket or wet market will feed two greedy people (my husband and I ate it all... at one go) and about four normal folks.

I adapted this recipe from Ken Hom with a 1980s haircut. You can check it out on YouTube here. It's his recipe for Peking Duck. I don't want to call this Peking Duck because you really need some skill and proper equipment to make that. The traditional Peking duck  skin has to be really crispy, but in our normal ovens it may not be possible. But this recipe is still good and quite crispy anyway! 

Hainanese chicken rice

Serves 4 - 6

For the chicken

1 big chicken

1 inch knob of ginger

5 - 6 cloves of garlic, whole

2 stalks spring onions

1 pandan leaf, tied into a knot

splash of tsao tsing wine

salt & finely ground white pepper

For the dipping sauces

1) Chili sauce

big red chilies

small red chilies

grated garlic

grated ginger

sugar

lime juice

salt

oil and some of the chicken soup

(all blended) 

2) Ginger garlic sauce

Some ginger, peeled

Some garlic, peeled

Spring onions, chopped

salt

sugar

oil and some of the chicken soup

(Blend all ingredients. Fry the ginger, garlic and spring onions in oil first) 

3) Thick soy sauce

For the chicken soup

1 pot of water

4-5 slices of ginger

garlic

pandan leaf tied to a knot

spring onions

salt

For the chicken sauce

Sesame oil

Light soy sauce

Chicken soup

For the rice

Rice, washed and dried.

Fat from the chicken's backside and trims, cut into small pieces

Whole peeled garlic, lightly smashed

1 stalk spring onions, tied to a knot

1 stalk pandan leaf, tied to a knot

For garnish

Coriander leaves

Spring onions, julienned and soaked in ice cold water

Slices of cucumber

1) Wash the rice till the starch runs clear. Dry.

2) Clean and dry the chicken and stuff the garlic, ginger, spring onion and pandan leaf into the cavity. 

Rub the skin with salt and pepper. Then with tsao tsing wine.

3) Bring the pot of water to a boil with the garlic, ginger, spring onions and pandan leaf. Once the water boils, immerse the chicken fully into the water. Turn off the heat, cover and leave it for 30mins. Turn it back on again to bring to the boil, then turn off and cover for another 30 minutes.

4) Remove the chicken and rub it all over with sesame oil, and leave to rest. Reserve some stock for the chili, garlic, and chicken sauce. Use the rest to cook the rice.

5) For the chili sauce, blend all the ingredients in a food processor with a bit of the stock.

6) For the ginger garlic sauce, blend the ginger and garlic. Add some oil to a fry pan and fry till fragrant. Add the salt, sugar a bit of the chicken soup and spring onions.

7) Fry the pieces of chicken fat in a wok until the fat renders out. Add in the whole garlic cloves and fry till fragrant. Add the rice and fry till it turns slightly light brown or smells slightly toasted.

8) Add the rice to the rice cooker, and add the appropriate amount of chicken soup in the cooker. If there's not enough, add water. Then add the spring onions and pandan leaves. 

9) When the rice is done, remove the garlic, spring onion and pandan leaves and fluff the rice.

10) In a small bowl, combine light soy, stock/chicken soup and sesame oil. (You can serve this separately for dipping or pour it over the chicken after it's been chopped). 

11) Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces. 

12) Arrange sliced cucumber at the bottom of the serving plate and then the chicken pieces on top. Pour sauce over, if you want.

13) Garnish with the coriander leaves and spring onions soaked in cold water.

* If you want to cut down on cooking time (greatly!) just use store bought chili sauce and mix bottled minced ginger and bottled minced garlic together. It isn't the same but it will do! 

This is also my own recipe and I've probably made this about 5 times. (It's a lot of work!) It's always undergoing changes as I experiment a lot and I'm not very good at taking exact measurements.

Singapore fish ball minced pork noodles

Serves 2

A. Fish balls:
2 fillets of mackerel, skin removed
¼ tsp salt
1 chili padi, seeded and chopped
3 stalks spring onions, green part, chopped (save the white parts)
½ clove garlic, minced
pinch white pepper

B. Minced pork:
minced pork, palm sized
½ clove garlic, minced
spring onion, white part, chopped
1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce
Splash soy sauce
Few drops sesame oil
Few drops fried shallot oil (you can find them store bought in a jar)
Splash tsao tsing wine
Pinch white pepper

Mushroom sauce:
5 dried shitake mushrooms
5 large fresh oyster mushrooms (you can use fresh shitake too)
2 cloves garlic, minced,
1 slice ginger, minced
1 small red shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon dark soy
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Splash Tsao tsing wine
peanut oil
cornstarch (1 teaspoon of cornflour mixed with 2 teaspoon of water)
Pinch white pepper

C. Noodle sauce:
1 tablespoon Oyster sauce
Splash Soy sauce
5-10 drops Sesame oil
1 tablespoon Singlong Super Chili sauce
Very small spalsh of black vinegar (be careful of using too much, put a little bit at a time till you get the taste that you want)
white pepper

Fresh noodles, Hong Kong style or any fresh egg noodles, e.g mee pok
Boiling water with a handful of ikan billis and dried shrimp
Spring onions and fried shallots with shallot oil for garnish

1 Marinade mince pork by mixing all of B together.

2. Add all of A together and blitz t in food processor till it clumps. This will take quite a while. You need to be patient - if you don't process it enough you won't get smooth fish balls.

3. Transfer to a mixing bowl and pick up the mixture and then whack the clump of fish against a bowl a few times. ( I don't know why they do this but my mother said it had to be done.)

4. Divide fish mixture into 8. Wet hands and form fish paste into a patty, add a small marble sized minced pork in the middle and cover and roll into ball. Repeat with the rest. Lightly oil your hands and coat each ball so they won't stick. Set aside.

5. Reserve the rest of the minced pork.

6. Boil dried shitake in small saucepan of water till soft. Drain and reserve the liquid.

7. Cut and discard the stems off the boiled shitake and slice. Slice the fresh mushrooms.

8. Add peanut oil to a sauce pan with garlic, shallot, ginger. Saute till soft and add the fresh and dried mushrooms. When slightly brown, add tsao tsing wine.

9.  Add enough mushroom liquid to cover. Add the rest of the ingredients, except cornstarch. Boil for 10-15 mins. When taste is right, slowly add the cornstarch to thicken. Set aside on very very very low heat to keep warm.

10. Mix all the ingredients for the noodle sauce C.

11. Boil water in one pot for noodles, and boil water in another pot with ikan billis and dried shrimp.

12. Add the fish balls into the pot with ikan billis & shrimp. Let boil for 5 mins.

13. Boil the noodles for 2-3 mins and drain. Divide into bowls and mix it with the sauce.

14. While fish balls are still boiling, boil the minced pork in the same pot with a strainer/kitchen spider until meat turns opaque. Remove from water and add on top of noodles.

15. Add the mushroom sauce on top of noodles.

16. Remove fish balls and transfer onto noodles.

17. Garnish with fresh spring onions and fried shallots with shallot oil.

18. Spoon some of the ikan billis/shrimp/fishball/pork stock into bowls as side dish.

* This is my own recipe so and I'm not very good at taking down measurements so these are just estimates. I don't even normally follow other people's recipes to the tee either - cooking is all about gut feel!