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Cantonese Roast Duck

A whole duck, glazed with malt-vinegar skin water, air-dried a full day, roasted until amber and crisp, then sliced thin and wrapped with scallion, cucumber and sweet bean paste. Adapted for a home kitchen from the original ClouChef R&D report — 烤鸭粤式, report 28.

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Original poster image from clouchef.com (poster: 烤鸭粤式_28.jpeg). This is the hero poster only, not a step-by-step photo set.

Why this works

Cantonese roast duck is a patience dish disguised as a roasting dish: the roast itself takes only about thirty-five minutes, but the skin water and the drying take a day, and they decide everything. Brushing the maltose, vinegar and water glaze into every crevice — under the wings, into the leg joints — and then drying for a full twenty-four hours at 18–22 °C and below sixty percent humidity gives a skin that is already taut and dry before it meets heat, so it roasts to amber, oil-glossed crispness instead of softening. Roasting at a steady 200 °C, flipping once halfway, keeps the heat even, and the five-minute rest lets the juices settle so the thin 3 mm slices cut cleanly with skin attached. The accompaniments are treated, not raw: scallion scalded five seconds, cucumber blanched ten seconds and iced, pancakes steamed two minutes — each one made safe and each one kept crisp.

Ingredients

Equipment

• Oven with a rack and tray
• Hook or string for hanging while drying
• Sharp slicing knife
• Steamer for the pancakes (or a pot with a rack)

Steps

1. Clean and soak. Clean the duck, removing innards, neck and wing tips. Soak in clean water for 30 minutes to draw out blood, then drain and pat dry.
2. Glaze the skin. Mix the maltose, white vinegar and water. Brush evenly over the whole duck, paying attention to the dead corners under the wings and in the leg joints, where unglazed skin stays pale.
3. Dry for 24 hours. Hang the duck in a ventilated, dry place at 18–22 °C and 50–60% humidity for 24 hours, re-brushing the skin water once during drying. If your kitchen is humid, dry it in the fridge uncovered instead — the dry air works, though it may need the full day (home adaptation). The skin must be dry and taut before roasting.
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4. Roast. Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Brush the duck lightly with oil, place on the middle rack, and roast for 20 minutes. Remove, turn over, and roast for 15 minutes more, until the skin is amber, glossy and crisp and the core temperature holds at least 75 °C / 167 °F for 1 minute or more, per the report.
5. Rest and prepare the accompaniments. Rest the duck for 5 minutes — this rest is not optional; slicing early loses the juices. Meanwhile scald the scallion shreds for 5 seconds in boiling water, blanch the cucumber sticks for 10 seconds and ice them, and steam the pancakes for 2 minutes.
6. Slice and serve. Using a sharp knife at a 45° angle, slice the skin into pieces about 3 mm thick, each keeping a thin layer of meat. Arrange the skin slices on a plate, the meat strips to one side, and serve with the treated scallion, cucumber, sweet bean paste and warm pancakes.

Variations

• Whole duck: double the glaze and roast about 50 minutes total, flipping once, checking the core temperature (adaptation).
• No pancakes: serve the sliced duck over rice with the same accompaniments (adaptation).

Frequently asked questions

Why is my skin soft, not crisp?

It was not dried long enough, or the humidity was too high. Dry until the skin is taut and papery, using the fridge method if your kitchen is humid.

Why are some patches pale?

The skin water missed the crevices under the wings and leg joints. Brush those dead corners deliberately.

Can I shorten the drying?

A fan can cut it to a few hours, but the report's 24-hour dry gives the most reliable crispness; a fan-dried bird is the fallback, not the equal.

Storage and freezing

Best eaten fresh from the oven; the skin softens within hours. Leftover meat keeps 2 days refrigerated; re-crisp skin pieces in a hot oven until steaming hot. The meat freezes well for 1 month, but the skin will not fully re-crisp.

Related recipes

Source note: ingredients, quantities and steps are adapted from the original ClouChef R&D report for 烤鸭粤式 (data/reports/28.md). The report's pricing, margin and marketing sections are deliberately omitted here; no B2B cost is presented as a home-cook cost. The report's own cost tables are arithmetically wrong (a pancake line priced at 60 yuan, totals that disagree between sections), so no cost figures are reproduced. The whole-duck scaling and the fridge-drying fallback are adaptations and are labelled as such. Original poster image: clouchef.com (烤鸭粤式_28.jpeg).