Whole duck cured, smoked over camphor leaves and tea, then steamed and finally deep-fried — Sichuan banquet bird with deep amber, smoke-sweet skin.
Standard at Chengdu and Chongqing banquet kitchens since the late Qing — the camphor (樟) leaf is what makes it Sichuanese rather than just smoked duck. The traditional Sichuan sequence is cure, then smoke, then steam, then a final fry, which is opposite to most cured meats: cooking the meat through first means the smoke is purely aromatic, not preservative. Different from Beijing's open-fire roast and Cantonese soy-braised duck.
Late-Qing Chengdu banquet dish; the camphor leaf is what makes it Sichuanese rather than just smoked duck. Steam-then-smoke order means the 12 minutes over wood are pure aroma, not preservation. Skip the air-dry and you get campfire.
Skin shatters like burnt sugar — deep amber, edge of bitterness from the camphor, sweet pull from the tea. Underneath, the meat is moist and barely smoky, because the aromatic smoking is brief (roughly two short passes of about ten minutes). You wrap a piece in a folded lotus-leaf bun with scallion and a smear of sweet bean sauce. Skin too pale, the cook skipped the final fry.
Drying the steamed duck before smoking is load-bearing. Wet skin condenses the smoke into acidic droplets that taste sharp and ashy; dry skin lets the resin compounds in camphor and the polyphenols in tea polymerize onto the surface, which is what gives that deep amber and the sweet-bitter finish. Skip the air-dry step and the duck just tastes like a campfire.
Variations
Chengdu Long Chao Shou and Chongqing banquet kitchens both serve it with lotus-leaf bao; Beijing's Quanjude open-fire roast and Cantonese soy-braised duck are different birds entirely.
On the Palate
Where Tea-Smoked Duck sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour
- 115 min
Rub a 2kg duck inside and out with a dry cure of salt, Sichuan peppercorn, star anise, and Shaoxing wine. Refrigerate uncovered for 12 hours so the skin dries.
- 290 min
Steam the duck over high heat for 90 minutes until just cooked through. Pat the skin completely dry — any moisture left will turn the smoke bitter.
Watch outPat the steamed skin bone-dry before it goes over the smoke — any moisture left condenses the smoke into sharp, ashy droplets and the duck ends up bitter.
- 35 min
Line a wok with foil. Build a smoking bed of raw rice (100g), loose black tea (40g), brown sugar (30g), and dried camphor leaves (20g). Set a rack above.
- 416 min
Place the duck on the rack, cover tightly, heat on medium until the mix smolders — about 4 minutes — then smoke 12 minutes. Skin will turn deep amber.
Watch outStart timing only once the mix smolders and thin smoke curls up — cover tight, and the skin should come out deep amber, not pale or black-scorched.
- 55 min
Deep-fry the smoked duck briefly in 180°C oil for 90 seconds to crisp the skin. Rest 5 minutes, then chop through the bone into 3cm pieces.
Watch outDeep-fry just 90 seconds until the skin snaps crisp and the surface blisters — any longer past that lacquered sheen and the smoke note fries away.
- 65 min
Serve with steamed lotus-leaf buns (荷叶饼) and a small dish of sweet bean sauce, scallion whites, and cucumber batons.
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