This recipe accompanies this column.

Ingredients

1 duck, dissected into portions (2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 wings, 2 drumsticks)

The marinade:

250 ml makataan syrup (or syrup from another preserve such as green figs)

150 ml soy sauce

1 Tbsp ground ginger

2 tsp garlic powder

The smoke mix:

¼ cup rooibos tea leaves

¼ cup caramel sugar

¼ cup rice, uncooked

1 whole star anise

6 cardamom pods

10 coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

Plenty of heavy duty aluminium foil

A wok, preferably with a lid (but more foil will suffice)

Method

If buying a whole duck, dissect it and trim away excess fat and sundry bits. You can render the fatty bits down in a pan on a moderate heat after pricking many holes in the fleshy parts. Store the fat in the fridge or freeze it and use it for duck fat-roasted potatoes. If you do this every time you cook duck the quantity of duck fat you have will grow; just cool the rendered fat to room temperature and add it to the previous lot.

Mix together the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Pour half of it into a second bowl. Into one of them, dunk the trimmed duck portions in it to coat all over. Let them steep in this marinade for 3 hours or more. Keep the other bowl for later.

When you’re ready to smoke, remove the duck portions from their marinade and pat them dry thoroughly with kitchen paper; they need to be dry when smoked. Line a wok with 2 or 3 sheets of heavy foil, big enough to overlap all the way round by about 10 cm.

Mix the tea leaves, sugar, rice and spices together and pour the mixture into the centre of the foil-lined wok, and give it a shake to spread them around. The sugar does not act to sweeten the smoking meat; it gets the smoking done faster.

Put the wok on a moderately high heat for about 5 minutes 0r until smoke emits from the smoke base. Place a trivet (wire rack) above the smoke base far enough above so that there will be no contact between the duck and the leafy mixture. Cut foil to fit the top of the wok, then fold up the excess foil from below and crimp it. Make sure there are no gaps from which smoke might escape. Put the wok’s lid on if you have one.

Keep the heat on underneath the wok for about 10 minutes, then turn off the heat (or remove the wok from the hob) and let it continue smoking, still completely sealed, for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200℃. 

Remember the second half of the marinade? Grab that and dunk the smoked duck portions into it (d0n’t discard the marinade if there’s any left over). Lay the pieces out on an oiled (peanut oil, or a flavourless vegetable oil) baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for as long as it takes for the duck to turn a deliciously desirable golden brown. That’s when they’ll be done. Serve with (drained) rice or noodles or steamed vegetables, tossed in any remaining marinade. DM/TGIFood

To enquire about Tony Jackman’s book, foodSTUFF (Human & Rousseau) please email him at [email protected]

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