Attempt at making peking duck

Remember I traded a guacamole recipe for a peking duck recipe last week? Well...here are some pictures of my first attempt at roasting a duck...

I bought the duckling frozen at a local Korean supermarket. It took me a while to decide how I was going to hang a duck to dry for 6 hours. I looked for metal hooks at the store but couldn't find any. So I decided to use trussing pins (is this what they're called?) and kitchen string.

After several attempts, I stuck a pin through the neck bone, out the other side, and looped the kitchen string around the pin several times. Here's the duck in the just-boiled water. I scooped the water over the top of the duck and the skin started pulling against the duck (tighter, I guess). The underside started cooking a bit.

I hung the duck out on the deck using a very sophisticated system of two chairs and a honing steel from the kitchen knife set. I put a bowl underneath to catch the drippings. Luckily, Thanksgiving was a very nice day (no snow this year on the East Coast) and was actually quite warm in the afternoon.

No neighbors were freaked out because (1) the duck had no head and (2) was hung low enough that you couldn't see it behind the railing of the deck. After 6 hours in the sun, the skin did feel thinner, like paper, and slightly crispy.

I roasted this duck for only two hours in the oven at 375F (the recipe originally called for 300F). The crispy skin was easy to remove. There was still fat under the skin, but it was easy to scrape off. The meat may have been a tad on the dry side. Mmmm...drumsticks!

I served them with steamed (plain) buns, which were thicker than I wanted but fine as a substitute.

I cut up scallion and served the duck with "sweet flour sauce" mentioned in my last post.

The reviews by my husband and sister-in-law were good. If I ever did it again, I'd...

1. Have a pair of food-tweezers to help with the cleaning process, i.e., plucking the remaining quills.
2. Wait until after the drying process to remove the quills. After it dries, the quills "pop" out more so they're easier to spot and remove.
3. Find metal hooks.
4. Perhaps baste the duck (so many drippings/fat) so that the skin is darker.

Did you try out a new recipe this Thanksgiving?