On the dinner plate, Chicken has been the reigning king of fowl for far too long. I’ve been asking my meat market to stock a more diversified fresh poultry section, but apparently, I’m the only fool asking for such. Any poultry other than chicken and ground turkey gets banned to the frozen foods department: quail, duck, goose and turkey. (Guinea fowl, partridge, pheasant and pigeons can be had but only on special order).

I’m on a quest to lay off chicken for a while and explore some of the “other poultry”- both in the kitchen as well as on our homestead. While it’s a little too early to talk about the 20, 18, 17 duck eggs that we’re incubating (they’ll hatch this week), our plan all along is to raise our own meats.

Oh, before any of my readers freak out, no we haven’t cooked Duckie Momo or Nibbles. Both of them are on the “protected list” and are considered our pets. 

The past two weeks of recipe testing were devoted to taking one of the most elaborate Chinese dishes and creating a no-fuss, simple recipe that anyone can make.

Have you ever tried one of China’s most celebrated dishes – the sublime Roast Peking Duck with its crackling, crispy skin served in a fluffy Chinese steamed bun? It’s a complicated, multi-step recipe that involves air-drying the duck, blowing the duck to separate the skin from the body (essential to get the crackly-thin skin), pouring boiling water over the duck to tighten the skin, and roasting the duck while hanging (the duck, not you). If you’re interested, Serious Eats has an easier version.

I wasn’t interested in getting my version of the recipe to match Peking Duck, but rather to create a recipe that we could build on and that any kitchen novice to tackle. I distilled the dish to just 3 main ingredients.

1) duck
2) green onion (scallion)
3) bun made with a brilliant secret ingredient

Prep and hands-on cooking is less than 1 hour. (The duck will take longer in the oven, but it’s inactive, hands-off babysitting)

Roasting the Duck

The original Peking Duck is slathered and basted with a sweet/salty liquid of soy sauce and honey. I opted to simply season the duck with salt and pepper. Why make it any more complicated than than, when the duck itself has such incredible flavor?

I’m using our outdoor wood-fired grill from Memphis Grills, which acts as our outdoor oven. Yes, it’s wood-fired! We use 100% hardwood wood pellets that fuel the grill. It’s cleaner and healthier than charcoal and gives everything we cook a natural wood-fired taste.

You can roast your duck in your oven or out in your BBQ grill.  The most foolproof method of cooking duck is low and slow to keep the meat moist and tender — and then finish off with a blast of high heat to crisp up the skin.

Green Onion Goodness

In Asian cookery, green onion (or scallion) is used more than just for garnish. Raw green onion, cut into very thin, long slivers  and soaked in ice-cold water adds curly crunch texture! Plus, soaking it in water mellows out the spicy/harsh flavor of raw green onion. Give it a try. Here’s a more in-depth post on how to do this as a garnish.

In addition to curly-crunchies, I also minced some of the green onion with salt and flash-cooked with smoking-hot cooking oil to make “Scallion Oil.” It’s easy. It takes 5 minutes.

Cheater Chinese Steamed Buns

Okay, get ready for my secret ingredient. Prepared dough! This is a trick I learned from my Mom. A can of prepared sourdough biscuit dough creates light, fluffy, pillowy steamed buns!

All you have to do is roll out the dough discs into ovals and fold over. Steam for 8 minutes. Done.