Eight-treasure stuffed duck

Ingredientsserves 8

Equipment

• A steamer that takes a whole duck on a deep plate — a 35 cm basket over a wok. Without one: an oven at 100°C with a rack and a tray of water, covered, is the flat's stand-in. If you have nothing that holds a whole duck over steam, this dish cannot really be done.
• A needle and cotton thread, or skewers, to close the bird
• A wok, to colour it

How the time splits

1. 30 minThe eight things go in to soakhands off
2. 45 minSteam the rice, fry the filling, stuff and sewhands on
3. 12 hrThe duck sits in its marinade overnighthands off
4. 15 minInto the wok to colour the skinhands on
5. 1 hr 45 minOn a deep plate, in the steamerhands off
6. 10 minPour off the fat and thicken the juiceshands on

Method

1. Soak the glutinous rice at least two hours and steam it thirty minutes until cooked. Soak the mushrooms, lotus seeds, peanuts and dried shrimp separately; steam the ham ten minutes to take the salt down and dice it fine; steam the salted egg yolks and dice them.
2. Fry the filling and the rice together, seasoned with a tablespoon of the marinade. Keep it under-seasoned: the duck brings plenty of its own.
3. Rub the marinade over the duck inside and out and leave it in the fridge overnight.
4. Fill the cavity to eighty or ninety per cent — no more. The rice swells, and an overstuffed duck splits in the steamer, which is this dish's classic failure. Sew the opening shut, or close it with skewers.
5. Paint the skin with dark soy, heat the six tablespoons of oil in a wok, and turn the duck in it until the skin is an even deep red.
6. Set it on a deep plate and steam an hour and a half to two hours. Put a probe through the seam into the middle of the stuffing: it has to reach 75°C.
7. Pour the fat off the plate, tip the remaining juices into a pan, thicken lightly with the cornflour slurry and pour it back over. Lift it to the table by the plate, never by the duck.

Take care

• Duck, pork, crustacean (dried shrimp), egg, peanuts, soy, wheat, sesame. With stuffed poultry the thing you measure is the stuffing, not the meat: the centre of the stuffing must reach 75°C. An hour and a half of steam does it, but it does not count until a probe pushed through the seam into the middle of the stuffing says so. Do not stuff it the day before and hold it raw — stuff it when it is going in.

The story

It came down from Suzhou by way of Shaoxing and settled into Hong Kong's banquet restaurants in the 1930s as the dish that closes a table. It is the most handwork on this wall: soak, steam, fry, stuff, sew, colour, steam again, spread over two days. A restaurant chef bones the whole bird through the neck without piercing the skin; at home you do not, and the bones hold the shape in a domestic steamer. Most families make it once a year, at 冬至 or for the reunion table, and whoever makes it is at it from morning to night — and only when it reaches the table does everyone else learn it took two days.

Same kind

Crackling roast pork bellyBraised shiitake in oyster sauceConpoy and whole garlic, steamed and turned out

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.