A fresh twist on a top Chinese classic, crispy duck.
Okay one of my favourite things in the world is lovely little pancakes, with roasted duck
and all the little dips and the plum hoisin sauce, I love love love that.
And of course we cannot do that in 15 minutes, but I have got a little kind of version of
that that's quick, that's delicious, we've got duck breast here, they're gonna go crispy,
we're gonna flavour 'em in the same kind of flavours.
We got noodles, we're gonna make little cups out of this, it's gonna be so, so good.
Dips, sauces, it's gonna be proper finger-licking good.
Roasting a whole Peking duck may take hours, but this mega platter is ready in minutes,
and gives a warm salad vibe to my favourite Chinese dish.
Gorgeous nuggets of crispy duck breast are tossed in aromatic spices and served in fresh
crunchy salad cups loaded with noodles, tofu, and a magic hoisin dressing.
An amazing 15 minutes party on a platter with my crispy duck in lettuce parcels for four.
So we got pans on as per usual with 15 minute meals, we've got the kettle that has just
boiled, we're gonna bang that in here, and we are gonna cook off four nests of egg noodles.
I've got it on full whack.
So while these noodles cook away, let's cut up this duck.
We got 400 grams here just get a sharp knife and just slice it into one-centimetre slices.
Obviously by cutting it up small we're guaranteeing that we're able to get it crispy and gorgeous
in such a short amount of time.
So once we've sliced it up like that, then we'll just gather up little bits of the duck
like this, just do 'em in little batches.
And go one centimetre across in the other direction.
So this is the only real fiddly bit really, just lining up your meat.
As you can see on the duck it's got a nice layer of fat already, so I'm gonna put the
tiniest amount of oil in the pan just to sort of encourage that out.
And then when that fat does cook out of the duck I'll be pouring that away and putting
new flavour in that's gonna be delicious.
So we're gonna do usual, salt and pepper ok, we wanna get seasoning in there for sure.
But the key flavouring is gonna be five-spice, Chinese five-spice, about a heaped teaspoon goes
on and that's gonna be, y'know that's a blend of those beautiful Asian spices, things like
cinnamon, cloves, star anise.
So in this pan just put a little lug of oil, we're gonna go straight in with the duck,
just sprinkle it in, break it up.
And we'll keep that all moving.
And we wanna get it like golden and crispy and delicious, so I'm just gonna wash my hands...
Now the noodles let's just check 'em, we do not wanna overcook these.
Drain the noodles, and to help the cooking process fast give them a little rinse in cold
water.
And then what I wanna do is to stop this kind of sticking, I just wanna put a little bit
of sesame oil - just a teaspoon - on the noodles like that.
And just toss them in the sesame oil.
So that sesame oil will flavour it and stop it sticking, which is a good thing.
So the noodles are done.
The duck is looking beautiful we're just gonna keep tossing it.
The pan's getting shiny now where the sort of natural fats are cooking out.
And we just wanna keep loving it and tossing it, and over the kind of course of about five
minutes on a sort of medium heat, y'know it's gonna get golden and golden and more golden,
and that's good.
So while the duck sizzles, I can crack on with the salad.
To turn up the freshness, I'm swapping traditional pancake for simple lettuce cups.
Essentially a pancake is there to hold stuff, wrap it up, put it in your gob, and we can
do that with this.
So all I wanna do is get the iceberg, cut it through the stalk, then we can just remove
that stalk like that to sort of unleash all of those lovely, lovely leaves.
And then what I wanna do, I mean don't get too worked up about it, but try and un-click
the lettuce, into like little cups.
It's kind of, the way that these lettuces grow, they're all kind of higgledy-piggledy.
So just un-click them.
We got a good cup there look at that we're gonna make up a whole army of these, right?
So we're just gonna put that in there.
I love pancakes but the nice thing about the iceberg is it's gonna crunch and it's gonna
have that sweetness.
Y'know, what you can also do is if you got a bunch of mates coming round, you can just
un-click one iceberg and put another one in half on the side, and let people un-click
their own.
But look I mean it is quite beautiful, I quite like also just knocking out everything onto
a big tray, y'know being quite boisterous about it.
Y'know, go on help yourself just take what you want, there we go, lettuce.
So look, this is looking good.
The duck is getting shiny and golden, the noodles are really good.
What I wanna do with the noodles now is just take like little wads of them, and sort of
put them inside these little cups like this.
And this is where it kinda gets a bit messy but it's gonna kinda be messy in a lovely
way.
And make sure every cup has a load of noodles.
It's quite good fun actually.
So you might think this is a bit of a bonkers meal, but the lovely thing is people love
eating like this, y'know, sticky fingers getting in there.
And also what's really lovely about this, as soon as this hits the table people know
exactly what to do.
Just fold it up and bang it in their gob haha, it's not hard is it?
The platter is starting to take shape.
Now, time to give the duck some va-va-voom.
As these bits of duck get beautiful, I wanna think about just putting some stuff into this
pan.
So about four spring onions will be beautiful, and I'm gonna put some chilli in there as
well.
So I'm just gonna finely slice the chilli, just about half a chilli 'cos I'm gonna use
a little other chilli element later.
The spring onions just about a centimetre, centimetre and a half y'know fairly chunky,
can go in as well.
What we can do now if you look in this pan, y'know just from a kinda health point of view,
we don't have to be eating all that fat.
And probably the easiest way is just get some kitchen paper and just let it soak up that
excess like that.
Trying to be a little bit more health-conscious is absolutely what we're trying to do in 15
minute meals.
Going in with the spring onions and the chilli.
And then also some cashew nuts and some sesame, y'know just about 20 grams of cashews, a small
handful.
And the sesame here as well, really lovely.
Give it a little shake!
But we're not stopped yet.
Leave the nuts to go golden for just a minute or two, now's the perfect window to make the
ultimate crispy duck ressing.
So I've got hoisin sauce here.
If you put about four heaped tablespoons in there, right?
Let's get a couple of limes here and just roll them.
And I'm gonna just squeeze that juice into that hoisin sauce.
I'm also gonna spike it with a little garlic, just to give it a hum y'know, give it a nice
bit of a pong.
One clove of garlic, y'know raw, raw garlic's hot and it's really powerful.
One amount like that is enough.
So I'm gonna grab this spoon, mix that up.
The reason it's good to use a hoisin sauce - you can make your own - but it's just there
it's available it's in all the supermarkets, and it's quite nice just to sort of speed
through it and have another aspect of the salad done.
So, that goes to one side.
So toss this up.
We've got colour on the nuts now which is all we wanted to do, we have a heaped teaspoon
of honey going in, that's gonna link all of these flavours.
So by tossing it in the honey, can you see how lovely and shiny that is now?
And it's just going to look after it.
So at this point in the story I turn the heat off, we are done, I wanna introduce one other
element that I'm quite excited about - tofu.
Oh no, not tofu!
Right tofu in many parts of Asia is regarded as a really artisanal, incredible product.
I've gone for the silken style which means it's, y'know, presumably silky, and it comes
out like this and you can just slice it up very easily into little cubes, and then the
other way.
It's really really easy to use, and you can even go in half like that.
So it's very, very easy to slice up.
I just wanna sprinkle this in and around my little cups here.
Tofu, or beancurd, is made from soya beans.
It's already cooked and it's gonna give another dimension to this dish.
We're messing with textures you got a crunchy bit of nut and duck, next to this silken tofu
which is just beautiful.
And then I'm gonna go over with the duck.
And all I'm gonna do is simply from a height shake this, like that.
So everyone kind of gets an equal share.
Make sure every little cup kind of gets a nice little portion up.
There'll be a fight if you don't!
There's a couple of little things that you can do, just to put a little bit of brightness
in here got some lovely radishes - think they call these breakfast radishes - which are
beautiful just stuff one in each right?
It's slightly peppery and it's crunchy, and again it's all about textures and I love love
love all that.
So we whack that in and around the whole story.
Add the lovely fresh coriander on top, and drizzle the delicious hoisin and lime dressing
into every cup.
Last but not least, this chilli sauce here.
If you can just find those bits of tofu, and you can be really rough about it just sort
of go like that.
These little pops of sweet chilli sauce will really bring the tofu to life.
And just for fun add a final scatter of cress, and you've got a really exciting really delicious
warm salad, in just 15 minutes.
So not your everyday normal dinner I know but it's tapping into things that we love
- crispy duck, hoisin sauce, noodles, the cool little iceberg pancakes and all those
different flavours and crunches.
That one has gotten my name written all over it.
Now that is a heavenly, heavenly mouthful, absolutely gorgeous.