Thursday, September 04, 2014

Peking Duck in Oslo


A celebratory meal was cooked for another birthday boy. The birthday boy likes duck. Placed an order for a 3-kg duck at Maschmanns Matmarked (Maschmanns Food Market) picked it up and set up plucking some more feathers out of it. I guess the plucking is done by machines and feather ends are still left inside the skin. It's quite gross. We totally intended to eat the skin and spent some time pulling out loads of eeky down behind the wings and end-bits all over. Bit of a private joke here- for your information, this duck had nothing to do with the other ducks I stalk and chase at the lake.

Brushed the duck with honey and rice vinegar and had it stand in the dry and cold cellar for 24 hours. Then a slow roast over three hours ensured that the meat remained tender and flavorful. It's Peking duck done the way we like it. Honestly, I don't like having just the skin. I like the meat too. So does the girlfriend and her family. That was how we ate it. The girlfriend is Chef Ekstraordinære.

Had earlier spotted Hoisin sauce and frozen packs Peking duck pancakes or wraps at the supermarket. Was so tickled because the frozen packs of wraps were imported from Singapore's Tee Yih Jia. It's not difficult to get Asian ingredients at the general chain supermarkets (think ICA or Meny), but something specifically Singaporean was an unexpected find. Bought those wraps instead of making our own. Chopped up plenty of spring onions to go along with it. Of course we had a stash of handpicked lingonberries. The girlfriend boiled them into the sauce to go with the rest of the duck. A fantastic dinner. We laughed and said that in another year, this 3-kg duck isn't going to be enough to feed the family. Two ducks will be needed very soon.

2 comments:

wl said...

singaporean surprise finds I've come across at asian supermarkets in paris: Glutinous rice balls from who else but tee yih jia, sesame oil (not sure why, we seem to be a pretty big exporter) and frozen fishballs.

imp said...

i've definitely seen those packs in Oslo too. Heh.