The duck has a long history of over 1,500 year’s. Legend has it that an emperor of during the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368) occasionally hunted wild duck and then roasted it. He used a simple and original method to roast the duck. It was listed as an imperial dish in the “Complete Recipes for Dishes and Beverages”, written in 1330 by Hu Sihui who was an imperial doctor. He wrote how to cook the duck in his book. In the Ming Dynasty, when the capital was shifted from Nanjing to Beijing, Roast Duck became one of the famous official dishes. The first restaurant specializing in Peking duck was Bianyifang, which was set up in the Xianyukou, Qianmen area of Beijing in 1416. In this period, the method of cooking duck was to hang the duck from the ceiling of an oven and roast it over burning wood. The walls of the oven were first heated with sorghum stalks, and then the duck was placed inside and cooked by the heat given off by the walls. Bianyifang roast duck is crisp to touch and golden brown in appearance.ĭuring the Qianlong Period (1736–1796), roast duck was a favorite dish among the upper classes. According to the records in a book named “Zu Ye Ting Za Ji”, it said that roast duck was a popular gift given when visiting friends or relatives. In one collection of Beijing poems, it was written “Fill your plates with roast duck and suckling pig”. Quanjude (全聚德) Rrestaurant was established in 1864. Yang Quanren (杨全仁), the founder of Quanjude, improved the hung-in-an-oven method of roasting ducks. Quanjude Restaurant become well known in China and aboard for its innovations and efficient management. The best seasons to eat Beijing roast duck are spring, autumn, and winter. Eating roast duck has a variety of methods. The main method involves the chef slicing the duck into more than 100 thin flakes with meat and a piece of crispy skin in each slice. Diners then take a small, thin pancake, and roll it up with a piece of meat and small slices of spring onions inside, and lastly dip it in a sweet sauce and take a bite.Alex Chen shuffles into the narrow kitchen at Jacobs & Co to inspect the ducks.įour birds hang from hooks, browned around the wings and legs. “Skin not dark enough,” he says to Danny McCallum, chef of the luxury steakhouse, who so far has spent two days attempting to recreate Chen’s Peking duck.Īt 92 years young, the former restaurateur is not budging an inch on cooking method.Ĭhen first moved to Toronto from Ithica, N.Y., where he was studying botany at Cornell University, after his father suffered a stroke. He abandoned his PhD to take care of his father, and because he was unable to get a job in his field here, Chen saw his options as to either open a dry cleaning shop or a restaurant. In 1958, Chen chose the latter and opened China House on Eglinton Ave. For decades it remained popular with the local Jewish community, who would come to the restaurant to eat the pork and shellfish forbidden in their homes. The restaurant gone, having closed in 2011 after 53 years. “Chinese and Jewish people,” opines Chen, “are spiritual brothers.” Chen now lives in the Sunrise Senior Living home in Thornhill, playing bridge five times a week with many of his former customers. Ida Chen, an accountant living in Ottawa and one of Alex’s five children, recently got in touch. Neither she nor any of her siblings followed their father into the restaurant business. With no one to carry on his prized method for Peking duck, the recipe would die with him. She wanted to memorialize her father, by passing on his Peking duck to another restaurateur, who might serve it to future customers. “I talked to my dad and he says, ‘Who cares what an old man has to say?’ ” said Ida. But from the way he criticized the dish - the skin never sufficiently crispy - whenever his children or grandchildren ordered it in a restaurant, she knew it was important. On Ida’s behalf, I contacted several chefs to see who wanted to learn her father’s Peking duck method. “I would love to meet and cook with Alex Chen,” responded Nick Liu, who does a modernized version of Peking duck at his restaurant Dailo, sous-vide cooking the breasts, crisping the skin in a cast iron pan. “Yes I want this so bad,” said Anthony Rose, the “Duke of Dupont,” whose fleet of restaurants along the edge of Forest Hill caters to the same Jewish clientele that once frequented China House.
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