Yang Quanren, the founder of Quanjude, was a small businessman in the chicken and duck business, in the old world, Yang Quanren, in order to become rich, get up at dawn every day, kill chickens and ducks. First will be plucked clean, and then carefully to each duck to do some "surgery": with a tie with a pig urine bubble hollow copper skewer sucked full of water, from the wings under the duck breast, a squeeze of the urine bubble, the water will be injected into the subcutaneous, seeping into the meat. He injected one side, and then the other. Then, from the duck's neck incision, toward the duck's abdomen filled with water, and then in the esophagus plugged on a small section of broomcorn millet Rangzi, to the depths of the incision a plug. After such a "surgery" those who have been slaughtered after the original has been shriveled and collapsed duck, it will soon be fat and gas up, after such a treatment, a duck can be filled with 1 and a half pounds of water.
After years of dismal operation, gradually accumulated capital, started the Quanjude roast duck store, hired the Imperial House in the Qing Dynasty when the master Sun, with the Palace of the "hanging oven roast duck" technology exquisite roast duck, so that the "hanging oven roast duck" in the folk multiply The first is the "hanging oven roasted duck" technique.
While Master Sun's duck-roasting technique came from the Qing Dynasty, the improvement of the process and Yang Quanren's "duck surgery" seem to be inextricably linked.
After slaughtering the duck and scalded the hair, the first thing to do is to do some organizing work to separate the esophagus of the duck from the surrounding membrane, and then blowing with the mouth, so that the air can be smoothly blown into the body of the duck. Blowing makes the duck blanks nice and round, and they roast out more beautifully.
Generally speaking, it's easy to destroy the shape of the duck body by opening and gutting it, but Quanjude's chefs wisely chose the opening part, opening a crescent-shaped slit an inch long under the right wing, and covering the slit with the duck's wing hanging down after the guts are pulled out, so the duck body is still bulging beautifully because of the blowing air.
The purpose of filling the duck's belly with boiling water before roasting is to achieve the purpose of roasting the duck on the outside and cooking it on the inside. Water from the duck right wing under the knife into the cut, seven, eight points is appropriate. The amount of irrigation is very important to achieve the purpose of the outside of the grill inside the boil, but not overflow to destroy the skin of the duck.
To explore this seemingly unrelated and not to pursue the history of water-injected duck, but the outside of the roast is really the root of the magic of Peking Duck, there is no way to prove that the right to fall into this. Such imaginative cooking method is indeed a bit incredible, creative process and how can it have nothing to do with the duck's know-how?
Relative to Quanjude's fame, Cheap Square's history is actually much older, at 590 years old this year, and it was just recently approved as a World Intangible Cultural Heritage site.
The roast duck is still the signature of Cheap Square, but the broomcorn-burning stove has long since been replaced by an electric one. This kind of roasting method due to the fire of the text but not strong, the duck fat and water consumption is less, the roasted duck meat is more tender and rich and beautiful. There are very few duck restaurants that use stoves other than the Cheap Place, and most of them use the Quanjude method of roasting ducks on open fires in hanging stoves.
Hanging oven has a hole without a door, burning fruit wood, open fire, hanging oven roast duck because of fruit wood as fuel, roasted duck skin more crispy, and with a fruit wood fragrance, savor it, taste more wonderful.
Stewed oven roast duck is characterized by the roast ducks do not see the open fire, the first lighted broomcorn millet will be the oven walls hot, and then will be remedied duck into the oven, close the door, all depending on the heat of the oven walls and hot ash will be duck stewed and cooked.
Roasted duck is indeed more tender, and the juices in the skin are obviously more plentiful and fuller. The aroma of fruit and wood from the hanging oven seems to bring out the wisdom of the earliest human cooking methods of "roasting".
The Peking Duck's marvelous flavor is half in the roasting, and the other half in the eating. And rich eating method is after the end of the Qing Dynasty in the aristocracy gradually formed, at that time very concerned about eating spring pancakes, each family to the box store called Su Pan or box, each copy of which can have seven, eight or even a dozen kinds of shredded cooked meat, also sprinkled with shredded green onions, cilantro, and so on, to eat spring pancakes is extremely convenient to provide the box of roasted duck is also a big deal of the duck store at that time. As for the addition of sweet noodle sauce, I am afraid that most of the duck business is related to the Shandong people.
Peking duck eating method is about creatively combining the ingredients with each other without losing the characteristics of each element, and only a well-baked duck can support such a variety of flavors, and the delicate elegance of the duck meat itself comes through more and more clearly after a sensational attempt to try all kinds of changing flavors. Such touching creativity has a classic flavor in any era, and it is culture and history that have created the incomparable magical taste of Peking Duck!
The first one: dipping it in sugar, which is said to have been developed by the ladies in the mansion. They refused to eat green onions or garlic, but liked to eat the crispy and crunchy duck skin, dipped in fine sugar. Of course, only the skin of the duck breast is worthy of the elegant eating style of the ladies, a shallow taste to experience the crispy duck skin and sugar melting between the tongue, the rich juice and delicately submerged all the tangible feelings, this is indeed a romantic eating style full of female imagination. The skin of the most honorable breast can only be sliced in about 10 pieces, and how well these 10 pieces of skin are roasted is an important indicator of the quality of Peking duck, and the best ones must be melt-in-your-mouth without any crumbs, and the second pair of skins from the top is the most outstanding.
The second type: sweet noodle sauce with scallion strips, which can be served with cucumber strips, radish strips and so on. Use chopsticks to pick a little sweet noodle sauce, smear it on the lotus leaf cake, clip a few slices of roast duck to cover it, put a few shredded scallions on it, roll up the lotus leaf cake, it's really delicious.
Third: Garlic paste with sweet noodle sauce, served with cucumber or radish strips, is also a popular way to eat. Garlic paste can relieve grease, or you can dip the sliced roast duck in garlic paste and soy sauce, which adds a touch of spiciness to the fresh aroma and makes the flavor even more unique.
The fourth kind: hollow baklava with duck meat, this hollow baklava is hairy cake, the surface has sesame seeds, the center has a heart of dough, on the baklava will be cut on the side of the center of the heart of the dough can be hollowed out, there is just an empty space, to put the duck meat, sweet noodle sauce and shredded green onions. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, rich people used the hollowed out center to wipe the oil on their mouths, and the extravagance and wastefulness could be seen in general. Now Quanjude's hollowed-out biscuits have changed their production process, making hollowed-out biscuits that no longer have that noodle center for wasting.
The first three ways to eat in the order is also quite delicate, from the taste buds, should be dipped in sugar, and then rolled onions, and finally rolled in the order of garlic to eat, in the taste buds on the reflection is like a staircase, spicy stimulation of a layer higher than a layer. If you reverse this order, I'm afraid that the mouth is only spicy garlic, it is difficult to appreciate the beauty of the duck, and even more unable to enjoy the taste of the gradual progress, the richness of the texture level of the changes in the process can be tasted. Roast duck on the table when the ingredients are independent of each other, but also provide diners with unlimited combinations of possibilities, the beauty of the program is not to make the matter of eating roast duck complicated, but to respect the original response of people's taste buds. Programming and free combinations make eating roast duck more interesting, and the participation of diners in the unchanging and changing is the spirit of Chinese cuisine.