Gordon Ramsay Prepares Duck In A Secret Sweet & Sour Sauce ｜ Gordon's Great Escap

I've escaped to Vietnam and promised one of the best cooks in the country that I'll get to grips with this unique cuisine in just a week. I'm hot-footing it out of Ho Chi Minh City and flying 1500km north to the capital, Hanoi. It's a huge learning curve for me. It'd be very ignorant from a chef's point of view not to embrace their understanding of they waste nothing and eat everything. Hanoi is a communist stronghold. Traditionally, this part of the country has a no-waste culture. They are experts in nose-to-tail eating and one notorious female chef has made a reputation cooking just one ingredient. Now, this lady's a bit of a hard-ass, a bit of a legend. I'm in Hanoi for two days and I'm here for inspiration. I'm gonna get in there, see what she's up to and hopefully, yeah, like a magpie, steal some ideas what she's doing. Jesus. Where's the boss? Hello. How are you? Good to see you. Luckily for me, a local restaurant owner has come to my rescue. Madam Quack. K-H-O-I. Oh, Madam Quack. I thought you said quack like the duck. Oh, it is quack. And you are? My name is Rice, call me Quan. Mr Rice and Mrs Duck. Yes. So where's Mr Peking? I don't want to piss her off. Yeah. I want to keep her on a good side. All right. Yeah, I heard she has a ferocious temper. Three cleavers by the side of her. Very sharp, very sharp. Yeah, yeah. How many ducks a day does she sell? Duck lady, that's the name. Duck lady. She killed about 100 ducks a day. That's why her name is Duck Lady. How many husbands has she killed? One. Mrs Duck has spent 30 years perfecting her menu. But before I get to taste it, she wants me to meet her key ingredient out back. What are these little babies here? They must be days old. About 10 days old. 10 days old. And how old are these? Four months or five months. Four months old. So which ones are we going to use first? This is the oldest one, yeah? And this one? And this one. In order to find the plumpest bird, Mrs Duck has devised a unique test. Why are we doing that? Can you hear the sound? Yeah, yeah. From the duck to the ground. Yeah, yeah. Madam Quan never touch, just listen to the sound. All right. She's listening for a weighted, heavy sound. Can't believe I'm doing this to a duck. Okay. A lot of meat. There's a lot of meat, yeah. That sounds good. I'm beginning to think Mrs Duck is quackers. But her dish is famous throughout Hanoi, so she must be doing something right. So this is how she prepares the duck every day? Yes. And it's important to bleed the duck, otherwise it's going to spoil the texture of the meat. I get that. But why is she cutting it there? Because to here, to stay away from the stomach. It may get the bad food from the stomach into the blood. Yes. Yeah. She believes in slaughtering them just before she started cooking them. So it's done that fresh. So it's always fresh like that. Just slaughter and then cook it. So start off with the neck, yes? Yeah. Take more hairs off. Yeah. That's the labor of love. Does she never get bored plucking ducks? Ducks give her everything. Oh, really? Yeah. Houses and everything. The duck is the goddess of her house. She do it very quick. Anything to keep her happy. Now the dirty work is over. Mrs Duck wants to give me a lesson in nose-to-tail butchery. Straight down the middle. Pass the cleaver to her. She wants to teach you how to do it. She wants to now teach me how to sharpen a knife. To sharpen it. Here it is. Kung fu, yeah? Mrs Duck. Yeah. Straight off. Off. Yeah. Neck. It's amazing. I've never actually slaughtered one in the kitchen. Taken its feathers off and butchered it from there. Is there anything on the duck that she never uses? You see that? Yeah. Oh, the glands. That's the bile. The bile. Very bitter. Yeah, if that bursts over the duck, it ruins the texture of the duck. Yeah, smelly. Very smelly. I'm enjoying myself. I'm about to learn Mrs Duck's sweet and sour sauce. But all of a sudden, she's become tight-lipped. So nobody knows this recipe but you? Only her. Nobody else. Okay. Her life. It's not easy to give her life. I'm not asking to marry her. I'm asking for the recipe. It's you and I. Look at me. Mrs Duck. Chilies. Lemongrass. Oyster sauce. Okay. Yeah. Duck bean curd. No, sugar. Why are you being such a hard-ass when I've just plucked your ducks? She told you even her husband doesn't know about that. Serious? My god. You? You're one-off. She's unique. She's like a fine bottle of wine. They only produce one bottle. She's amazing. Huge source of inspiration. More importantly, she knows her stuff. I mean, big time. So she hasn't focused on 25, 30 dishes. She's just focused on a unique way with duck. She shows no mercy. Straight in there. Nothing squeamish about Mrs Duck, is there? I'm a little bit ******* scared, to be honest. While her signature dish cooks, I'm going to sample the rest of Mrs Duck's menu. So many different ways and different sort of styles of cooking duck. It's amazing. You want to try the hat if you want to? Easier. Nice and tender. That's good. That's very good. That's the duck stomach. Oh, it's very chewy though. That's nice. It's got a leathery liver texture to it. Now for the main event. The barbecued duck is ready. So it's mixed with the marinade and then on top of the charcoal grill. That's great. And then the fan, obviously, to intensify the heat. Nice. That is delicious. And she's managed to use everything, even there, as a piece of the leg. It's amazing.