Peking Duck is a famous royal dish for a long time, the pride of Chinese cuisine. Processing takes a long time and requires experience from the cook.
District 5, a part of the area that Ho Chi Minh City people call Cho Lon, is the place to keep many unique cultural, culinary and architectural features of the Chinese people. This is also the location of many restaurants serving Chinese dishes in a nostalgic atmosphere, taking diners temporarily away from the bustling atmosphere of normal days. I choose to enjoy my meal Ngan Dinh restaurant, located on An Duong Vuong street. The staff took me to the pre-set table, lying right the window, looking down at the bustling five-wheeled circle below. Here, I admire the “show” of Beijing roast duck skin which is famous in the Chinese culinary community. Cuisine is an important aspect when people mention the culture and history of a country or region. Beijing roast duck, for example, is the pride of Chinese cuisine in the world. The dish was born in the Ming Dynasty, about 600 years ago. In the royal kitchen, roast duck is created and perfected by the best chefs from all over the country. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, royal chefs began opening restaurants around the capital and bringing recipes for Beijing roast duck outside the Forbidden City. Delicious dishes quickly appeared in the meals of the elite at that time. The process of making Beijing roast duck requires skill. Chef Li Suen Wai, who has more than 20 experiences, directly cooks this dish in the kitchen. He said that the duck selection stage is the prerequisite for a good, bad and standard product or not. Duck is raised for about 65 days, weighing about 2.8-3 kg, ideal for cooking. With that number of kilograms, the duck skin after roasting has enough thickness, fat and the most delicious taste. The roasting process only takes about 45 minutes, but before that, the duck has been marinated and allowed to air dry overnight. The dish derived from the royal family still remains aristocratic when it requires elaborate and time-consuming preparation. There are no exceptions, the “phase burning” not only detracts from the spirit of the dish, but the taste is also affected more or less. First, the duck is plucked, off the organs, and washed with water. The whole process must ensure the skin is intact. “Many people come to the restaurant just to enjoy Beijing roast duck skin with crepe, so be very careful,” the chef noted. Duck is thoroughly marinated with some familiar ingredients, including five flavors, salt, anise, fragrant leaves, pepper … The chef inflates the air into the duck body, making the skin separate from the meat. The dry skin determines the crispness of the final product. Next, the chef heats a mixture of water, vinegar, and malt candy to lightly rinse the duck. The mixture acts as a glaze with sugar from malt and vinegar acids to help the duck dry quickly and absorb taste. The chef hangs ducks on the hook of the automatic rotary oven located in front of the restaurant, where diners can easily observe them moving inside. As mentioned, the spinning takes approximately 45 minutes. This is the reason why Chinese restaurants always advise customers to book in advance if they want to enjoy roast duck to the fullest without having to wait long. Just before being served, the duck is quickly poured with boiling oil to make the skin hot, crispy and possess a beautiful honey brown color. I choose a three-course roast duck menu, including duck skin wrapped in crepe, fried duck with noodles and duck bone in soup. Leather is always served first and at the table. I call this cut duck skin “performance” because the chef is so proficient, manipulating quickly and precisely when taking each thin, square skin layer into the plate. He starts with the neck, cutting steadily at an angle until the skin is completely separated. Duck is served with scallions, long sliced cucumbers and crepes in small rolls, barely enough for two bites. Once the best skin has been removed, the chef continues to make the noodle stir-fry. Li Suen Wai quickly cuts the meat separately, so that diners don’t have to wait too long. You know, emotions when eating are very important, having to wait too long makes us less excited and excited, which directly affects the experience of the person enjoying it. In a modern kitchen space, always busy, the sound of cooking, the sound of footsteps walking around, Li Suen Wai focuses only on her large pan. He turned on the stove, added water and used a cleaning broom. When the pan is dry, a certain amount of oil is poured, followed by noodles, duck, chives, shiitake mushrooms, carrots and seasoned with salt sugar, seasoning powder … Without removing any of the duck, the chef processes the soup with the final ingredient, bone. The dish is still cooked on a multi-purpose round pan. You can even steam, fried, boiled, braised, stewed, cooked soup, smoked and even roasted nuts on this amazing item. Very quickly, the dish is brought to the table, where diners are eager to discover the Chinese taste in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. Enjoying the duck skin wrapped in crepe is indeed an enjoyable journey that I can even describe my feelings in detail. Biting the first bite, the teeth and tongue touch the soft, soft, sweet taste, then almost immediately meet the thin but crispy duck skin, melting quickly in the mouth. The cucumber and scallions are responsible for neutralizing the whole dish, making it cool. And it would be flawed if I ignore the rich sauce that makes the flavor different. The thick, sweet, savory and aromatic hoisin sauce is created from the individual recipe of each restaurant. The dish scores in the contrast between soft, chewy and perfect crunchy, each ingredient has its own mission, to satisfy fastidious diners. The duck skin is almost exclusively enjoyed with the other two dishes on the menu. The striking color of the duck plate fried noodles impressed me first. Next is the taste, the duck meat is moderately tough, spice-absorbing combined with the thin but not dry noodles, scallions, chives, carrots, crispy lumpy. In the third dish, the rest of the duck is cooked together with tofu, vegetables, and you can see the ginger flavor spread in your mouth, the broth in the separate bowl is also rich, sweet from the bones. I finish my meal by sipping my hot tea as the chef suggested: “Like most Chinese dishes, diners should use hot tea when enjoying Peking Duck to reduce the oil in the recipe. eat and cleanse the body “.
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