A southern Fujian (Quanzhou and Xiamen) and Taiwanese cold-season tonic dish. Muscovy duck is chopped on the bone, dry-fried in toasted black sesame oil with a large quantity of mature ginger, then braised in rice wine — often with tonic herbs — in a clay pot until the meat is tender and the sauce reduced, aromatic and warming.
Ginger duck is associated with Quanzhou and Xiamen in southern Fujian and is also hugely popular in Taiwan. Its exact origin is undetermined; one account traces it to a Quanzhou salt-duck dish that used only old ginger, water and salt over a slow charcoal braise. The sesame-oil, rice-wine and medicinal-herb formula that defines today's version took shape among Taiwanese makers in the 1980s, and from 1993 that Taiwanese style fed back to influence the Xiamen original. A separate legend credits the dish to a Shang-dynasty court physician. The dish is eaten as a yao-shan tonic in the cold months.
The duck comes out deeply browned and tender on the bone, its lean meat carrying the dark nuttiness of toasted sesame oil. Curled, almost crisp ginger and a reduced wine sauce give a warming, gently pungent finish that builds heat in the chest rather than the tongue.
Mature ginger — harvested late and kept as seed-stock — is coarser-fibred and more pungent than young ginger, rich in gingerol. Dry-frying the slices in black sesame oil blooms both: the hot oil carries the ginger's fat-soluble pungent compounds, and on heating part of the gingerol dehydrates to shogaol, which is roughly twice as pungent — the chemistry behind the saying that old ginger bites harder. The long rice-wine braise breaks down the connective tissue of the lean Muscovy duck so it turns tender, while the alcohol simmers off and leaves its aroma in the reduced sauce.
Variations
The southern Fujian home and tonic version is a reduced clay-pot braise; the popular Taiwanese restaurant style serves it as a simmering hot pot you cook other ingredients in once the duck is eaten. Yao-shan versions add herbs such as angelica root, prepared rehmannia, codonopsis and goji berries; cooks vary the amount of black sesame oil and may add rock sugar or soy sauce. The Quanzhou salt-duck ancestor uses no sesame oil at all.
On the Palate
Where Ginger Duck sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · 25 min
- 120 min
Chop the Muscovy duck on the bone into large pieces; rinse and pat dry. Slice the mature ginger thickly into long pieces, leaving the skin on.
- 210 min
Heat the black sesame oil in a clay pot or heavy wok over low heat and fry the ginger slowly until the slices curl, shrink and turn golden and fragrant.
Watch outDry-fry the ginger slowly until they curl, shrink and turn golden — that blooms the pungent oils; rush it and the ginger tastes raw and flat.
- 38 min
Add the duck pieces and stir-fry over medium heat until the skin renders its fat and the surfaces are well browned.
Watch outBrown the duck until the skin renders its fat — that rendered fat and browned surface carry the whole braise's flavor.
- 45 min
Pour in the rice wine and enough water to nearly cover; add rock sugar and soy sauce to taste, and the herb bundle if making the tonic version.
- 575 min
Bring to a boil, then lower to a gentle simmer and braise, covered, until the duck is very tender, about 60 to 90 minutes.
Watch outBraise gently until the duck is very tender — lean Muscovy needs the slow simmer to break its connective tissue down.
- 610 min
Uncover and reduce the sauce until it is thick and glossy; serve hot in the pot.
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