Roast duck with pancakes, plum sauce and sesame seed cucumber

 This is a quick version of Peking duck. The family all love it. You can substitute the plum sauce for bought Hoi sin sauce, and also buy in the pancakes, you can get online or any supermarket.

 Ingredients:

 1 whole fresh duck

4 tablespoons honey, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

24 pancakes

 For the Plum sauce:

500g plums

2 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

60g golden caster

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoon soy

2 teaspoon English mustard

salt

Cucumber with sesame seed dressing:

 One cucumber

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 tablespoon sugar

½ red chilli, finely chopped

2 spring onions, finely chopped

1 garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon ginger, finely chopped

2 tablespoons coriander, finely chopped

zest and juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoons sesame seed oil

For the Pancakes:

500g plain flour

400ml boiling water

50ml vegetable oil

1 teaspoon Salt

½ teaspoon chilli, optional

 Method:

First, mix the honey and soy and brush the duck all over.

 Preheat the oven too 200°C. Place the duck on a rack in a roasting tin, and cook without basting or turning for 1 ½ hours. Check to make sure the duck is not getting too dark, if it is, cover it loosely with foil.

 To make the plum sauce cut the plums in half and remove the stones, cut into pieces, put everything into a saucepan and cook for about 15 to 20 mins, remove the star anise and cinnamon, put into a processor and puree until smooth.

 Now make the cucumber first peel the cucumber and slice in long strips with a potato peeler or mandolin, sprinkle on some salt and leave for one hour, then drain well and pat dry. To make the dressing, brown the sesame seeds in a dry pan, allow to get cold. Now add all the other ingredients and mix well. Mix the cucumber carefully so they don’t break.

Put the flour, chilli and salt into a large bowl. Boil the water and add slowly to the flour, mixing all the time.

Add 2 teaspoons of vegetables oil, mix into a smooth dough, divide the dough into 2 and roll out into a sausage and cut each sausage into 12.

Now make a ball of each piece, push down and roll out to a small circle repeat with another ball of dough rolling to the same size circle, brush a little oil on top all over to the edges now put the other circle of dough on top.

Heat a frying pan and fry the pancakes for 1 minute on each side. Repeat with all pancakes.

Once cooled peel the pancakes apart and leave covered with a damp cloth until required. Warm through in a steamer prior to serving.

To serve:

Remove the duck skin and carve the meat, or carve both together. Arrange on a serving place.

 To eat, spread about 1 teaspoon of the plum sauce into the centre of a pancake, add a strip of the cucumber, duck meat, then roll up the pancake. Turn up the bottom edge to prevent the contents from falling out.