Savory and aromatic, the spices effectively mask any gamey duck flavor while blending beautifully with the meat's richness, resulting in crispy skin and tender, fall-apart meat.
When I first tasted Crispy Duck as a child, what an experience it was—crispy, the skin was incredibly crispy! As I grew older, I learned that this famous Shandong dish involves steaming the duck, mixing glutinous rice flour with water into a paste, spreading it over the duck's surface, and then deep-frying it until golden and crunchy. The texture is truly wonderful, but making it at home is quite wasteful—what else can you do with a whole pot of oil after frying the duck? So I adapted the traditional method. While the final texture is slightly different, it's just as crispy and saves a lot of hassle.
Ingredients
Main Ingredients
2 duck legs (about 500 g / 1 lb total)
Fresh duck legs are best; frozen ones tend to have a stronger gamey flavor.
Marinade
15 g (about 1 tablespoon) soy sauce
15 g Shaoxing wine
2 g salt
Scallions and ginger, each to taste
20 Sichuan peppercorns
3 star anise
5 pieces of cardamom
3 bay leaves
Other Seasonings
1 egg white
8 g (about 1 tablespoon) glutinous rice flour
a few drops of dark soy sauce
If you don't have glutinous rice flour, you can use cornstarch instead, but the texture won't be as good.
Instructions
Instructions
Marinate the duck legs.
① Wash the duck legs, remove any fine hairs from the skin, rub them thoroughly with the meat marinade, and let them marinate for 5-6 hours, or overnight if time allows (Image 2).
*Duck meat has a relatively strong gamey flavor, and since duck legs are thick, they need more time to marinate; giving them a good "massage" for a while is also a great way to help the flavors penetrate quickly.
Steam the duck legs until tender.
Step 2: Place the marinated duck legs in a steamer and steam over high heat for 1 hour until tender and falling apart (Image 3). Turn off the heat, remove the lid, and let cool slightly.
*The duck leg must be steamed over high heat to become tender; it may not necessarily take exactly 1 hour—during steaming, you can poke it with chopsticks to check how soft it is.
*Using a pressure cooker to steam saves time and gas, but the flavor won't be as deeply infused.
Beat the egg whites into a frothy batter.
Preheat the oven to 230°C (450°F) with both top and bottom heating elements for 10 minutes. Separate 1 egg, keeping only the egg white, and add a few drops of dark soy sauce (Image 4). Whisk continuously with chopsticks until it becomes a fine, frothy foam (Image 5). Add glutinous rice flour (Image 6) and mix well by hand (Image 7), then spread this egg white batter evenly over the duck legs (Image 8).
*A few drops of dark soy sauce in the egg whites helps with coloring, so the duck legs will have a more beautiful color after roasting.
*The egg whites must be beaten until stiff peaks form, as trapping as much air as possible in the egg whites is the key to creating a crispy coating. Pay attention to your technique when beating; after adding the glutinous rice flour, fold it in from the bottom up—this is what's known as folding. Mix just until combined, as overmixing will deflate the foam and ruin the crispy texture. Also, work quickly, as the fine bubbles will continuously break. If whisking by hand is too strenuous, you can use an electric mixer instead.
Roasted duck legs
Brush the duck legs with egg white batter, then place them in a preheated oven and roast for about 15 minutes until the surface is golden brown and crispy (Figure 9).
*Brush oil on the baking sheet to prevent sticking, and you can also place two small thin cabbage leaves underneath for extra non-stick protection.
Flexible application
If you find that just duck legs aren't enough, you can use half a duck instead. If marinating and steaming seem too time-consuming and gas-intensive, use the braising method: first cook the duck in seasoned braising liquid until tender, then either roast or deep-fry it.