Peking Duck with Plum Sauce

If I had known how easy this dish was to make I would have certainly been making this years ago. But its not difficult if you do it this way. Rather than roast a whole duck, you just cook one duck leg per person and that is a perfect amount of crispy duck each. This dish was actually made because of the large number of plums I had brought cheaply from the market - am glad I did because it was lovely.

Ingredients:           (serves 2)

2 duck legs
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 star anise
3 cloves garlic, bashed
2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
1 tbsp. olive oil

Put the duck legs in a saucepan with the star anise, soy sauce, garlic and enough water to just cover the meat. Bring to the boil and then turn down to a simmer for two and a half hours.

When the time is up, set the oven to 200 C and take the duck out of the cooking stock. Pat dry with kitchen paper and put onto a baking sheet covered with greaseproof paper. Whisk the oil and hoisin sauce until combined and paint over the duck legs. Put in the oven for approx. 25 minutes to crisp up the skin. Serve with sliced cucumber, sliced spring onion, pancakes, some hoisin sauce and the plum sauce. Let the diner do their own shredding of the meat - its fun food!

For the plum sauce:

12 ripe plums
5 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
2 tbsp. soy sauce

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones. Pop into a pan with a little splash of water, the sugar, allspice and soy sauce. Bring to a boil and then cook on a medium heat until the plums have broken down (about 20 minutes). Put into a serving dish and leave to cool.