Peking Roast Duck
Whole duck roasted over fruitwood until the skin turns glossy and crisp, carved at the table and eaten wrapped in thin pancakes with sweet bean sauce, cucumber and spring onion.
How to eat it
Spread a thin layer of sweet bean sauce on the pancake, lay on two or three slices of duck with a few strips of cucumber and spring onion, fold it into a parcel and eat it with your hands. Do not overfill; the pancake tears. The plain pieces of crisp skin served first are dipped in white sugar, not sauce. The carcass is usually turned into a soup afterwards, so do not be surprised when it reappears.
The story behind the dish
Roasting duck in Beijing goes back to the Ming court, when the capital and its cooks moved north from Nanjing. Two methods still compete: the closed-oven style, which bakes the bird in retained heat, and the hung-oven style, which roasts it over open fruitwood and produces the deep lacquered skin most visitors picture today. The pancake-and-sauce presentation is what turned a banquet dish into a meal that ordinary diners share, and it remains the way almost every restaurant serves it.
For reference
Every kitchen does it its own way. What follows is the typical version — ingredients, heat and price shift from city to city and from one restaurant to the next, so take it as a guide rather than a fixed recipe.
If you have an allergy or something you can't eat, check with the staff before you order.