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Create a homemade Chinese New Year meal with crispy Peking duck wrapped in gluten-free pancakes with all the trimmings!
Here’s a well-known dish that everyone loves to eat – Peking Duck with Mandarin pancakes, especially during Chinese New Year, which is the next festival on the calendar this year – 1st February 2022 to be exact, ushering in the Year of the Tiger.
How many of us suffer when we go to have a meal at a Chinese restaurant and see the trolley whiz by with a whole roast Peking duck and steamed bamboo baskets filled with warm pancakes, knowing that you can’t enjoy the crispy duck pancakes because they are made with wheat flour? Even if you opt not to eat the pancakes, the duck is glazed with gluten soy sauce, so really all that’s left are the cucumber sticks and spring onion shavings…Bon appétit!
Chinese New Year Traditions
In northern China, the pancakes (called Chun bing) are served to welcome Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) and pray for a good harvest from the spring crops. Not only is duck added as a filling, but stir-fried vegetables and eggs are cooked separately, and each diner helps themselves, similar to assembling a burrito.
Making homemade Peking duck is not common in most homes in China as many do not have ovens and it is far easier to resort to buying one already made.
Store-bought Peking duck meal versus homemade
Buying a ready-made Peking duck from a takeaway shop or restaurant has been prepared with regular soy sauce containing gluten. This applies to the Hoisin sauce, although some brands now offer gluten-free Hoisin Sauce.
The pancakes sold in the freezer section at Asian supermarkets or in restaurants are made with wheat flour, also gluten!
It is possible to enjoy a Peking duck meal completely gluten-free by following my recipes. You can choose between a whole Peking duck or several portions of Peking duck breasts. I explain how to prepare both types in my recipes. The ingredients are readily available and all it takes is a bit of planning ahead to make all the components for this classic, authentic Chinese meal.
