Food and Drink Atlas

How The World Eats
Dishes

Peking Duck

Also Known As Beijing Kaoya

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A roast duck dish from Beijing prized for its lacquered, crackling skin, traditionally air-dried, glazed with maltose syrup and roasted in a closed or hung oven, then carved and served with thin pancakes, scallion, cucumber and a sweet bean or hoisin-style sauce. Its lineage traces to imperial court kitchens of the Ming dynasty, and it remains one of the most internationally recognized dishes of Chinese cuisine.

Facts
Origin Period, From (Year)
from 1330 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountAn early roast-duck precursor, then called shao yazi, is recorded in the 1330 Yuan-dynasty manual Complete Recipes for Dishes and Beverages; the dish now known as Peking duck was fully developed later, under the Ming dynasty, and Bianyifang, the first restaurant specializing in it, opened in Beijing in 1416.
Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own account
China (Nanjing origin, later Beijing) 1
Origin Period, To (Year)
to 1416 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks the opening of Bianyifang, the first restaurant specializing in Peking duck, in Beijing, by which point the dish's Ming-dynasty development was complete.
Cross-Tradition Connections

Expresses Tradition

In Cuisine

Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson

Uses Ingredient

Salt, Ingredients
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Wheat, Ingredients

The thin pancakes the duck is wrapped in are made from wheat flour.

Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Sources
1. Peking Duck (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory
Quote, History
A variation of roast duck was prepared by the emperor in the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The dish, originally named 'shao yazi', was mentioned in the Complete Recipes for Dishes and Beverages manual in 1330.
View the Source
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014
Larousse Gastronomique
Hamlyn, 2009Expresses Tradition: Salt Curing, Smoking and Drying, s.v. Peking Duck
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