Duck recipe as told to Tom Parker Bowles is a lesson from the grand master of Chinese food

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'We have a saying about Cantonese food,’ says head chef Tong Chee Hwee, as he fires up the wok burner in the immaculate kitchens of the Hakkasan-owned HKK in east London.

‘You cook a lobster so it tastes like a lobster. It’s about doing very little to the finest ingredients, letting the real flavour come out.’

With the Southern-style duck, as opposed to the Northern, Peking style, it is the duck that is the star rather than the garnishes and pancakes

He goes back to preparing his duck (‘outdoor-raised and wax-plucked, so the skin has no damage – very important’), gently massaging the inside of the cavity with a mix of sugar, salt and five spice.

‘For the perfect Southern-style roast duck,’ he says in his soft, firm voice, ‘every tiny detail is crucial.’

Tong is executive chef of the Hakkasan group, a serious, slightly intense man who commands respect.

He’s spending a lot of time at HKK at the moment, the first restaurant in the country to take regional Chinese food into the realms of haute cuisine.

Speaking through a translator, he works fast, throwing bashed ginger and spring onions into the duck, then sealing up both ends with well-honed ease.

Steak holder

The Traditional Beef Company makes proper beef, using Aberdeen, Herefords, Longhorn and Highland cattle. They’re grass-fed, properly finished then hung for up to 40 days. The result: beef filled with bovine heft, the sort that lingers beautifully on the plate long after lunch is gone.

Beautiful British Beef traditional-beef.co.uk

All around him, similarly serious white-jacketed chefs work in silence, the only noise the roar of the burner, the dull clunk of cleaver on wood.

And the shrill clatter of spoon on wok.

Proper duck is serious business here. He hoists the bird above a wok bubbling with vinagered water and scoops a ladle full of the liquid. He pauses.

‘The water must be just below boiling, so it tightens the skin and removes any excess wax, without releasing any of the duck’s fat.’ He shakes his head.

‘That happens, the skin becomes oily and the glaze won’t stick properly.’

He drenches the bird, then dries it inside and out with such delicacy that it could be a sickly child.

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Meanwhile, diners are flooding in to the restaurant and the air of this immaculately clean kitchen becomes rich with fragrant stock and steaming crustacea.

Tong pays little attention, instead mixing maltose, white vinegar and water to create a glaze, which is spooned across the bird’s body. Once suitably sticky, it is hung in front of an old-fashioned fan, to dry for 90 minutes.

‘The drier the skin,’ he says,’ the better the crispness.’ After that it’s into a hottish oven for an hour, before a 15-minute rest.

‘With the Southern-style duck, as opposed to the Northern, Peking style, it’s the duck that is the star. Rather than the pancakes and garnishes.

Every part is devoured. But just like in all classical Cantonese cooking, the key is to enhance the natural flavour.’

Then an alarm sounds, and he hauls the bird from the oven, its burnished skin like brittle caramel. ‘Now, go and sit down,’ he says. ‘The duck will follow soon.’

It’s a magnificent bird, slightly sweet and joyously rich, perfumed with the merest whisper of spice. The skin is crisp and glorious, every last drop of fat rendered out.

Not brittle, like the better-known Peking style, but so utterly seductive that an involuntary grin spreads across my face. The meat is dark, soft and succulent, the very definition of carnivorous allure. 

The rest of the meal – dim sum with the thinnest of pastry, soup of such delicacy it floats down the throat – contains some of the most beautifully cooked Chinese food I’ve eaten. Precise, clean and sexy, every flavour and texture exquisitely realised.

But that duck, dear God, that duck. Once bitten, forever smitten.

I’m now off home to make it myself. I’ve got the recipe. And the ingredients. All that’s missing is Tong’s 25 years of practice.

Oh well. For duck this fine, a quarter century’s toil is time well spent. 

hkklondon.com

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