Peking Duck Experience: A Must-Taste Highlight of Your Beijing Tour
📧 contact@holiday-beijing.com 📱WhatsApp : +86 15810701565
What's Peking Duck
Peking duck, also named Beijing Duck, is a famous Beijing cuisine with a worldwide reputation. It originated in the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 AD) in China. Roasted duck was recorded in the "Food Records" and was a famous dish in the palace at that time.
The ingredients are high-quality meat ducks, roasted over fruit wood charcoal, with a ruddy color, fat but not greasy, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Peking duck is divided into two major schools, and the most famous Peking duck restaurants in Beijing are representatives of the two styles, Quanjude and Bianyifang. Peking duck is known as "delicious food in the world" for its bright red color, tender meat, mellow taste, and fat but not greasy characteristics.
History of Peking Duck
The reason why Peking Roast Duck went from the palace to the common people's table is thanks to "Quanjude" roast duck. Its founder, Yang Quanren, was a small businessman who ran a chicken and duck business. After accumulating capital, he opened the Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. He hired a roast duck chef who had worked in the imperial kitchen of the Qing Palace. This chef used the palace's "hanging oven roast duck" technique. This exquisite roasting method helped the "hanging oven roast duck" spread widely among the people.
Quanjude Style
Quanjude adopts the hanging oven roasting method, and does not open the duck. Only a small hole is made in the duck, the internal organs are taken out, and then boiling water is poured into the duck's stomach. The small hole is then tied, and the duck is hung on the fire to roast.
This method prevents the duck from losing water and allows the skin to swell, preventing it from becoming soft. It uses fruit wood (jujube or pear) as fuel with an open flame. The result is a plump appearance, reddish color, and a distinct fragrance of fruit wood.
Bianyifang Style
Founded in the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, Bianyifang is a time-honored brand with nearly 600 years of history. The "stewed oven" is a ground oven where the duck is not exposed to open fire. It is stewed by charcoal fire and the heated oven wall (dark fire).
This technique requires high skills to control the temperature. The roast duck has a shiny, crispy skin and white, tender meat. Though originally using sorghum stalks, it has largely transitioned to electric stewed ovens today.
Compare the 2 main style Peking Duck
Nowadays, there are very few roast duck restaurants that use stewed ovens, and most roast duck restaurants use the Quanjude hanging oven roasting method. The roast duck in the stewed oven tastes more tender, and the duck skin is obviously more juicy and full. The fruity wood fragrance of the hanging oven roasted duck seems to make people appreciate the wisdom of the "roasting" cooking method that humans first mastered.