Double-O Dining by Edward Biddulph

Author:Edward Biddulph
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781629339283
Publisher: BearManor Media
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Peking duck, a favourite of James Bond’s, as mentioned in the film of You Only Live Twice (1967). Photo: Author

When it comes to a choice between Russian caviar and Peking duck, James Bond (Sean Connery) doesn’t have a preference. As he tells his companion, Ling (Tsai Chin), at the start of You Only Live Twice (1967), he loves them both. One is not better than the other, they just taste different. Like Chinese girls and all other girls. Ling promises Bond the very best duck, which Bond thinks would be lovely, at which moment he is unceremoniously machine-gunned in his bed. A ruse, thankfully, but he never did get that duck.

Ian Fleming was also fond of Peking duck. As recorded in Thrilling Cities (1963), he sampled the dish at the Peking Restaurant during a visit to Hong Kong with Richard Hughes, the Sunday Times’ Far Eastern correspondent. The duck was accompanied by shark’s fin soup, shrimp balls, bamboo shoots with seaweed, and chicken and walnuts, and Fleming thought the meal was “in every respect delicious.”26

My recipe includes two ingredients that give the dish a Bondian twist: vodka martini and one of Bond’s breakfast items, heather honey. The martini is unusual, I’ll admit, but, as explained below, it helps with the preparation of the duck before cooking. As for the honey, this is a typical ingredient in the dish, so why not use Bond’s favourite type?

Serves 3–4

1 duck

1 vodka martini (3 measures vodka, ½ measure dry vermouth)

3 tbsp. dark soy sauce

3 tbsp. heather honey (preferably Norwegian)

1 tsp. Chinese five spice powder

⅝ cup/150 ml. water

A further 150ml water for cooking

When cooking Peking duck, the secret of a crispy skin is to dry the skin thoroughly before cooking. Traditionally, when making the dish in the home, the duck is suspended between two chairs and dried over several hours by means of electric fan, bicycle pumps, or a breeze coming through the window. I managed to achieve a dry skin, slightly leathery to the touch, by placing the duck uncovered on the worktop and, overnight, in the refrigerator, over a 24-hour period.

It’s said that rubbing the skin with brandy, vodka or some similar spirit aids the drying process, and so naturally I brushed the skin at the beginning of the drying with a vodka martini, using the ratio specified in the novel of Live and Let Die (1954).

However you dry the skin of the duck, when it’s ready for the oven, make a basting sauce by putting the soy sauce, honey, Chinese five spice powder, and water into a small saucepan, placing the pan over a high heat, and stirring until the ingredients are well combined. (There’s no need to bring the mixture to the boil.)

Heat the oven to 475°F (240°C; 220°C fan-assisted). Put the duck on a wire rack, placing the rack in turn into a roasting pan. Pour ⅝ cup/150 ml. of water into the pan. Brush the basting sauce all over the skin of the duck and put the pan in the oven.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.