{"id":977,"date":"2011-12-19T10:29:18","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T15:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=977"},"modified":"2011-12-19T10:24:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T15:24:48","slug":"beijing-roast-duck-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/beijing-roast-duck-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beijing Roast Duck (\u5317\u4eac\u70e4\u9e2d\uff09"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nForget that Christmas ham and toss out that Thanksgiving turkey. If you want the classiest, most extravagant and flavorful meal Chinese cuisine has to offer, you need something more regal and imperial: a meal made specifically for the Emperor.<\/p>\n

Peking roast duck or \u5317\u4eac\u70e4\u9e2d (B\u011bi j\u012bng k\u01ceo y\u0101) is the quintessential fine dining centerpiece in a Chinese meal. Like numerous Chinese dishes, it is a cornerstone of culture and class-ism, harking back to the Yuan Dynasty (\u5143\u671d Yu\u00e1n ch\u00e1o\uff09of the 14th century where it was called \u71d2\u9e2d\u5b50. It soon gained clout in high society and quickly became the dish favored by Emperors and the royal families.<\/p>\n

Much like Germany with its century-old brewing laws and standards, \u5317\u4eac\u70e4\u9e2d cooking statues, as made clear by the Imperial Kitchens of the Ming and later Qing dynasties, follow very strict practices of raising, cooking and preparing the dish. Ducks are often fattened, hand plucked and feathered, washed and cleaned, inflated with air (to separate the skin from the meat) and then glazed in maltose syrup. They are then hung on hooks and slow cooked inside a wood fired, brick oven as seen below:<\/p>\n