My celebratory contribution was to cook Bonnie
dinner on her birthday proper, so I came down and
opened the fridge to find three duck legs. I'd
made her duck before, and she liked it and wanted
me to do it again, but, knowing my penchant for
dark meat, she got legs, not realizing that duck
breast is much easier to cook, can be done rare,
and is dark meat anyway.

Her colleague Letitia, with whom she is doing
a concert tour of Germany and France this summer,
came over to show off her Rosalinde that she'd
just done in Weimar, and I was sort of hoping
she'd be able to stay to dinner, but she has a
boyfriend to deal with, so it was just the two
of us. After she left I separated the drummers
and set them to cure in salt, pepper, and thyme,
for another day, and skinned the thighs in
preparation for a sort of deconstructed Peking.

The skin was cut into small nuggets and rendered
for fat and cracklings.

The thighs were slow-cooked to well done - duck
dark meat being kind of tough when not fully
cooked - then shredded.

Scallions minced (normal would be to make about
2" slivers, but I was impatient), hoisin sauce
(do not, repeat, not use the Cantonese so-called
duck sauce in this or any other setting) provided.

Peking doilies (bao bing)
categories: Chinese, starch
servings: 2 to 3

2/3 c water
1 1/4 c flour
1 Tb sesame oil
1 Tb regular oil

Mix flour and boiling water. Add cold water
[this time I didn't add cold water but stirred
the flour and water together until cool enough
to handle] and knead into a smooth dough. Let
rest a few minutes. Roll out into a baguette
and cut into six pieces. Use a rolling pin to
flatten each piece into a 4" pancake. Brush
each with a thin layer of sesame oil [I used
half sesame and half regular] and place them
together in pairs, oiled sides together. Roll
each pair out until you have 6" pancakes. Heat
a dry nonstick pan to medium-high. Drop in a
pancake pair and cook until golden bubbles
form on the underside, shaking the pan from
time to time. Flip and repeat for the other
side. Remove and separate pancakes. Fold into
quarters and cover with a warm damp towel until
serving time. This recipe may be doubled.
Pancakes may be made ahead and reheated by
steaming (but theyre better fresh). Recipes
posted to FIDO COOKING echo by Mike Loo, an
excellent cook, between Dec 1, 1944 and Jul 31,
1995. Many are authentic Chinese recipes. File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/mikeloo.zip

attributed to "Mike Loo" on bigoven.com and
adapted by moi

So you take one of these pancakes and spread hoisin
to taste over, then sprinkle on scallion bits, duck
skin bits, and duck meat (optional). Fold up like
either a burrito or a taco and eat greedily but
being careful not to let the things fall apart.
Some put cucumber into their packets; I think that's
just a terrible idea.

With this I served Dry Creek Vineyard Merlot 12,
which was brambly, just barely off dry, tannic
enough to cut any excess fattiness (as if), and
still fruity enough to stand up to the hoisin. Not
being good at three dimensions to begin with, and
being extra visually impaired these days, I spilled
my second glass.

It was a pretty satisfactory meal, not really really
Peking duck but with the right flavors and an okay
facsimile of the right textures. The cracklings were
almost as nice as the canonical thin breast skin,
the meat not as luxurious as the breast meat, and
the pancakes not as tender as they should have been
because of my incompetence in making them (I think I
overkneaded, possibly underkneaded).
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