The BEST Cantonese Roast Duck made in the Sous Vide

Cantonese roast duck is another classic Cantonese barbecue dish. These are the ones that you see hanging on those um at the windows of the barbecue store. Today we're going to make an even tastier and crispier version of this which is called Pei Pa Ngap, Pea Pod Duck. It's also a type of Cantonese roast duck. It's not made that often anymore because it's a more difficult process but we're going to use the sous vide to help us recreate this dish. And this is kind of cooking and if you haven't done so already please subscribe for more videos and hit that notification bell so you know what's coming up next. The reason I chose to do this duck recipe in the sous vide because you know everyone knows that the sous vide the strong point is to cook everything separately right. You want to do the dark meats and the white meats and you do them at different temperatures different times. We're going to try and do this in the sous vide because when I watched a traditional way of making it it was spatchcocked, it was poached and then it was roasted and so I thought that this was perfect for the sous vide. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to spatchcock it. This is a little bit different and it's the Chinese way. We're going to do it through the chest instead of the back. Yep that's the wishbone. Usually they cut off the wings because to get the skin super crispy your wings are basically burnt bits so we can so we can so we can save these for later for other applications. So we want to open it up there you're we can crack the chest a bit there's a couple areas we can cut off any extra fat. I cut around a little bit of the chest bone just so I can get a little flatter and then I popped out the joints and then you can just go around the spine and just break some of these these bones so you can get these as flat as you can. The other option is to flip it back around okay see how it's nice and flat now and when you're doing it you just break it there and you you know give it a little break there so that you can get it as flat as possible. This will really help later on when you are roasting it. So the name 皮扒鴨 or in Mandarin 皮扒鴨 actually came from the fact that it looks like the Chinese instrument pipa. I guess it's this part the bones and usually you have the head it's hanging so it just looks like the instrument. The trademark of this 皮扒鴨 is the skin is super crispy and it was so flavorful that even the bones have flavor in it. We got this duck actually fresh from King Cole Farms so we're pretty excited to try this one. Now we're going to make the marinade. We have quite a bit of ingredients and we will put all this into one bowl and mix it together before we marinate. This is fermented red bean curd. My favorite. It's so salty! We need to mush it. Five spice powder, sugar, soy sauce, rose wine. This is what the rose wine looks like in case you're wondering and we actually will have the list of the ingredients in the description below. Dark soy, oyster sauce, and a little bit of white pepper. So while Kevin's mixing I'm going to warm up this maltose. It is quite hard to get it out directly from the container so I'm going to pop it in the microwave for about 10 to 15 seconds so it warms up and I can put it directly in. So once this is ready we are going to brush this onto the skin side. The next step after brushing it is to fit it into your vacuum bags and you'll notice that we have special bags. We took extra large vacuum bags so that they're expandable and you can fit the whole thing in no problem. These come in large rolls and you can cut them to whatever size you need to. And if you want some for yourself we'll put the link in the description down below. As usual we're going to fold this over. You're going to want to have your skin side on the smooth side of this. That way you can ensure that your skin will look nice later on. Once you get it in you saw how easy that was. Much easier than trying to shove it into a tiny bag. Let's pour the to the underside of the bird. You'll put all the rest of the ingredients so it doesn't affect your skin. Yep we have two star anise, some crushed garlic, crushed ginger, and some scallions. And all of these ingredients help to reduce the gaminess of the bird and that's why you want some of these. Let's seal her up. So all this has been sealed up. You can see that we have all the sauce on this side and all the aromatics on this side. The one thing we want to be careful of and which is a good another good reason to use a vacuum bag for this is that these are thicker and these bones some of them are sharp so you want to ensure that they don't puncture the bag. To be extra safe you can double bag it and also double seal it. This is going to sous vide for 12 to 16 hours at 150 degrees fahrenheit. So the duck came out of the sous vide. It's still nice and flat. You can see that it's perfectly cooked. Now we're going to dry it off and then we're going to brush all the rest of the flavoring onto it and to dry the skin. Just remember skin is delicate now since it's been cooked so just make sure you're careful when you dry it okay. If you are sous vide-ing, invest in some good paper towel. It really pays off. Flip her over. This side's not as important and you want to try and keep some of this sauce on there so try not to wipe all of it off. Just make sure it's dry. Now the next step is to flavor the duck even more. We have equal parts oyster sauce and hoisin sauce and we're going to brush it all over the bone side of the duck. This is why they say even the bones have flavor. So once the bottom side is nicely flavored we're going to flip her back around and next thing we're going to do we're going to salt this side of the bird again. So this will again help in the drying process. The next step is to glaze it with some maltose. Remember the easiest way is to microwave it or warm it up then you can mix it in otherwise it will never happen and the other ingredient is Chinese red vinegar. Yes so this red vinegar is not the same as like the red wine vinegar or even the other Chinese vinegar which we usually use the black one. It's so usually this is used for wonton soups, noodles, fish maw soup, things like that. It's much lighter in flavor. And now we'll put this back in the fridge and uncover to air dry to make sure the skin is super crispy. The duck has been in the fridge for over 12 hours. You can see that the skin is very dry to the touch and we're ready for the oven. We're going to put in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and we're hoping for a nice mahogany color when it's done. So we finished it off. We did part of it in the oven and then I took it out and I ladled some hot oil over it to down the middle section so we can get the middle nice and brown for presentation. That part is optional but if you want to and you have the resources to do it, it helps to brown the skin. This looks really good. It does. So the hallmark of this is crispy skin and flavor throughout. Yeah. And still tender meat. The bone has a lot of flavor. The meat of the duck is super flavorful. Very fragrant, very aromatic. Nice and tender. What do you think of the skin? I guess it's because we've left it out for a while. It's been out for a while but someone told me that what they do in restaurants after they finish it and before they chop it, they would refry it with oil by pouring oil over it and that helps to re-crisp the skin. Yeah because we've, you know, taken a lot of shots and things like that so it's been a while but when it first came out it was very crispy. Yeah. But it still tastes really good. If you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs up. It really helps with our YouTube algorithm and if you have any questions or feedback, leave it in the comments below and we'll get back to you. It's really reminding me of roast duck.