Chinese New Year Recipe Sichuan-spiced duck bites

We have teamed upwith online ingredients specialist www.souschef.co.uk for Chinese New Year, the online cookery store that brings world-class and hard-to-get ingredients as well as cookware straight to your doorstep. They have created this delicious Sichuan-spiced duck recipe for us. We love the inclusion of glass noodles, making this recipe a restaurant style dish that is surprisingly easy to put together! We have included the links to some of the more unusual ingredients at the bottom of the page.

Sichuan-spiced duck bites

Serves 2, or 4 as part of a larger feast

Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

2 Gressingham duck breasts
3cm piece of fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves
1 carrot
15 green beans
6 spring onions, white and green part separated
135g mung bean vermicelli (glass noodles)
2 tbsp chilli bean paste
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp dark soy sauce
4 tbsp chopped preserved mustard greens
1/2 tsp toasted and ground Sichuan peppercorns
Whole iceberg lettuce, leaves separated
Hoisin sauce

Method

First render the duck fat. Remove the skin from the duck breasts, and cut it into 1 inch squares. Place these skin pieces into a small saucepan with 100ml cold water, cover with a lid, and cook over a medium to high heat for 5 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to simmer for a further 5-10 minutes until the water evaporates and you see duck fat in the base of the pan.
Whilst the fat renders prepare the rest of the ingredients. Cut the duck breast into half centimetre cubes. Set aside. Mince the ginger and garlic. Dice the carrot and green beans, and whites of the spring onion so they are the same size as the duck pieces.
In a saucepan, boil the mung bean vermicelli for 6 minutes until cooked. Rinse well with cold water and set aside.
Measure 3 tbsp of the rendered duck fat into a frying pan. Refrigerate the remainder to use in another meal. Over a medium heat, cook the ginger, garlic and chilli bean paste until fragrant. Stir in the carrot, green beans, whites of the spring onions and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the sugar, dark soy sauce, mustard greens and Sichuan pepper and simmer for a further few minutes. Turn the heat to high and add the duck. Stir fry quickly until cooked.
To serve, put everything in the centre of the table: the stir fried duck garnished with sliced spring onion greens, a bowl of the mung bean vermicelli and a plate of iceberg lettuce. Everyone can fill their own lettuce cups. First with noodles, then a spoon of the duck mixture and little hoisin sauce.Enjoy!

To buy the ingredients:

Gressingham duck breast is available in all major supermarkets.

Glass noodles:http://www.souschef.co.uk/bean-thread-vermicelli.html

Chilli bean paste:http://www.souschef.co.uk/chilli-bean-paste.html

Preserved mustard greens:http://www.souschef.co.uk/pickled-vegetables.html

Sichuan peppercorns:http://www.souschef.co.uk/sichuan-red-pepper.html