Fried Crispy Duck (香酥鸭)

Another duck dish! This is a traditional banquet dish, that’s originated in the provinces along the YangTze River, and nicely demonstrated in this great YouTube Video by the famous celebrity Chef, Fu Pei-Mei (in Chinese Sound Track). We made it at home with much simplified and more efficient procedure, using boiling, as we did in the Beer-braised Duck (vs steaming), up front, and pan-frying (vs deep-frying) at the end. The results were quite pleasing. An air fryer version of this recipe is also tried and written in this post (in Part V).

1. Get a non-frozen ("fresh") duck from a Chinese market, or a frozen duck from almost any market, which needs at least 48 hrs to defrost in the fridge;
2. Place the whole duck into a large pot (a 7.5-Qt soup pot is used in our kitchen), add water to immerse at lease 60% of the duck. Bring the pot to boil, and simmer the pot for 30 minutes (flip the duck at half way point). Take the duck out, and air-dry the for for an hour.
3. Follow the spatchcock instructions in this excellent page to remove the duck's backbone with a poultry shear, i.e., remove ~1/2"-wide along the backbone. Flatten the duck by hand as much as possible.
4. Add 1/2" of veggie oil into a large (10-12" in diameter) flat-bottom cooking pot (no need to add oil in this process, as the duck fat will be rendered into the veggie oil as we fry the duck). Under medium-to-high-heat, bring the oil to 350-375 degF. Note- Make sure you use veggie oil suitable for frying (i.e., oil with smoke point above 400 degF). Use a thermometer to test the oil temperature. Or use this fairly reliable empirical method: stick a single chopstick into some water, swing the chopstick vigorously to get ride of most of the water, then stick the chopstick into the oil, if you see tiny water bubbles rising up quickly from this slightly wet chopstick, the oil has reached the desired temperature range for frying. 
5. Place the flattened duck into the oil slowly and carefully. Fry both sides of the duck till golden brown (10-15 minutes for each side, under medium-to-high-heat).
6. Let the duck rest for 10 mins in a warm oven (by preheating the oven to 200-degF, then turning off the heat). Cut the duck with a knife and a poultry shear, before serving. The result from our kitchen is at the top of this post.