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Crispy Duck w/ Asian Style Veg Salad
Serves 4
Cooking time ~1h 15
This is my Dad's absolute favourite meal which I recently attempted to recreate for Father's Day. It went pretty well - there's quite a lot of prep involved but you can do a lot of it in advance. Make sure you have a peeler...
Ingredients:
2x Gressingham Half Aromatic Duck
500g Carrots
2x Cucumbers
200g Radishes
6x Spring Onions
100g Beansprouts
200g Rice Noodles
2x Red Chillies (deseeded and finely chopped)
Fresh Ginger (chopped into matchsticks)
Fresh Coriander (finely chopped)
2tsp Caster Sugar
2tbsp Cornflour
2 tbsp Hoisin Sauce
Sesame Oil
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Handful Cashew Nuts
Method:
Preheat your Oven to about 180ºc
The hard work here is basically in the vegetable prep, but it's so worth it.
Start by very thinly slicing the Radishes. You want these to be thin discs. Slice them up and set them aside in a bowl, with a sprinkle of Caster Sugar and Salt. This will help draw out any excess moisture from the Radishes and enhance their natural sweetness.
Wash and finely slice the Spring Onions and set these aside with some washed Beansprouts. These are going in the salad raw and will add a nice crunch.
Crush the Cashew Nuts with a rolling pin or something heavy. Put these into a dry pan and heat until toasted. Set these aside too.
Heat a Wok/Frying pan up with a drop of Sesame Oil. Put your Rice Noodles in here and Stir Fry until cooked - usually after about 2 minutes or so. Leave these in a bowl to cool while you get on with the rest of the salad.
Now for the Duck. Get the Half Ducks onto a baking tray, ideally with foil underneath. I tend to get the Aromatic Half Ducks you can find in the supermarket - these are way easier to get crispy and they go nicely with the tastes of the rest of the meal. The packet will say you need to cook them in the oven for around 35/40 minutes, but I would suggest longer. We want this Duck to be as crispy as possible, so the longer the better.
Once the Duck has had around 50 minutes to an hour, remove and set aside in a large dish. Shred the Duck up with a couple of forks. We want to leave this Duck aside to dry out a little while we get on with the rest of the Vegetable prep - it will make it much easier to get it nice and crispy later on. It should look like this:
For the Carrot and Cucumber, you want to peel these into ribbons. Peel the Carrots as you would normally and discard the outer skin, but then continue to peel so you're left with long ribbon strips. Likewise for the Cucumber, but you don't need to worry about discarding the skin.
Once you've peeled all of them, you can add these to a large bowl and season with Salt. Again, this will draw out the moisture and leave you with nice, fresh crispy Veg.
Back to the Duck - add a couple of tablespoons of Cornflour to the Shredded Duck and mix well. Then, get a wok / frying pan on a medium to high heat with some Sesame Oil in it.
Fry the Duck in batches and drain on kitchen towel when it gets to a nice crispy texture.
Once you've done the final batch, discard any excess Oil from the pan, add the Duck back to the pan and stir through enough Hoisin Sauce to coat the Duck properly. You don't want to drown it in Hoisin but make sure it's covered well.
You might want to add a light dressing to the Carrot/Cucumber mixture. You definitely don't need it but may prefer it. Mix some Rice Wine Vinegar with some Sweet Chilli Sauce and a touch of Honey together. Pour this over the Cucumber and Carrot and toss well.
Add the Beansprouts, Spring Onions and Radishes to the ribboned Veg and mix well together.
To build the Salad, start with a base of the cooled Rice Noodles. Then, layer on the Veg mixture. Finally, top with the Crispy Duck.
Garnish to preference - I like to add everything (Cashews, Chilli, Ginger and Coriander).
Enjoy. If you fancy sharing your effort, then please tag @wellgoodgrub on Instagram.
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