Braised duck with plum sauce

Plum-Braised Duck is a traditional home-style dish featuring roast duck and pork rind as main ingredients, complemented by celery. Prepared using the original braising technique, it boasts a savory-sour flavor profile.
Key seasonings include minced garlic, fermented bean paste, sour plums, rock sugar, and dark soy sauce, with the rock sugar crushed before use. Preparation involves soaking pork rinds in water for 1 hour, changing the water 3-4 times. Add half a teaspoon of rice vinegar during the last two soakings, then blanch with ginger and scallions over high heat for 3 minutes.

Cut the roast duck into chunks and combine with the prepared pork skin. Add a sauce made from pickled plums, rock sugar, dark soy sauce, and other seasonings. Sauté with minced garlic and fermented bean paste until fragrant, then simmer over low heat for 18 minutes. Add celery segments in two batches for flavor. Sprinkle with scallion segments before serving.
This dish nourishes yin, strengthens the spleen, and stimulates appetite. Note: Hawthorn should not be consumed with seafood, ginseng, or lemon.

Plum Braised Duck Legs falls under the system of Cantonese cuisine (Guangdong cuisine), and some regions also hold that it has roots in Hakka cuisine. Plums are abundant in Guangdong, where locals skillfully use the natural sourness of sour plums to cut through the greasiness of duck meat—an expression of Cantonese cuisine’s culinary philosophy of “cooking in accordance with the seasons and putting flavor first”. Originally a delicacy for festival and family gatherings, this dish has now become a common staple on everyday dining tables and is also highly popular in Chinese restaurants abroad.

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Step 1
Prepare two duck legs. Soak them to remove blood water, then pat dry with paper towels.

Step 2
Heat oil in a pan until it reaches the bottom. Add a pinch of salt and sear the duck legs skin-side down until golden brown, rendering out excess duck fat.

Step 3
Add red onions, ginger slices, and garlic cloves to sauté until fragrant.

Step 4
Pour water into the pot until it covers half of the duck legs. Add one tablespoon of dark soy sauce, two tablespoons of light soy sauce, two tablespoons of yellow rock sugar, two tablespoons of rice vinegar, two tablespoons of cooking wine, and three tablespoons of plum sauce. Simmer over medium-low heat with the duck legs skin-side up for 20 minutes. Then flip them over and simmer for another 20 minutes. It’s normal for the color not to darken significantly during this process—don’t worry.

Step 5
Reduce the sauce over high heat until thickened. Large bubbles will form in the pan—this is the critical moment for achieving color. Use a spoon to continuously spoon the sauce over the duck legs to help them brown. Do not allow the sauce to reduce completely.

Step 6
Remove from heat and spoon the remaining sauce over the duck legs.

Step 7
Once the duck legs have cooled, cut them into large chunks.