Peking duck

Not all of us have a local Asian supermarket or Chinese restaurant where you have the convenience of buying your duck already cooked for our peking duck platter, but it's incredibly easy to cook the duck yourself: here's how Warren does it. You can now also buy Saveur peking duck in some supermarkets and speciality food stores.

Peking Duck

1 whole duck
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup shao hsing cooking wine (or dry sherry)
1 cinnamon stick
3 star anise
Small knob of ginger, finely sliced
Peel from 1 orange
1 Tbsp black peppercorns

1. Wash and clean the duck then place into a large stock pot and fill with enough cold water to cover the bird. Add soy sauce, honey, and shao hsing. Add cinnamon, star anise, ginger, orange peel, and peppercorns. Bring water to the boil. Add the duck and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove duck, cool and refrigerate uncovered overnight.
2. Bring the cooking liquor back to the boil and leave it to reduce by two-thirds. Drain, leave to cool and refrigerate, covered, overnight. You can use this liquor to glaze the duck as it roasts, for extra richness, but you can leave this step out if you like.
3. The next day, roast the duck in a hot (225 deg C) oven until golden and crispy (approximately 1 ½ hours), glazing with your reduced liquor every 20 minutes.