MUZIChinese Matrix
Jiangsu Cuisine · FFET10146
Nanjing salted duck: cured with hot spiced salt, simmered gently, and served sliced at room temperature.
Eight to ten thick slices of cold salted duck lie overlapped in a row on a white oval plate, each with a rim of smooth cream-yellow skin over pale pink meat, served cool and plain, without sauce or garnish.
The regional cooking of Jiangsu, divided into the Jinling, Huai-Yang, Su-Xi and Xu-Hai style areas.
Yan shui ya is a Nanjing duck dish: a whole duck is cured with hot, toasted salt and spices, simmered gently, and served sliced at room temperature, often as a cold plate. Accounts of its popularity in late Qing Nanjing cite Chen Zuolin's Jinling Wuchan Fengtu Zhi, but no year is given and the book has not been checked. A December 2019 report records Nanjing's duck capital nickname and annual consumption of over 100 million ducks. A reprinted November 1, 2006 report records salted duck entering Jiangsu's provincial intangible heritage list, though some reprinted text is garbled.
Yan shui ya is a whole duck cured with hot, toasted salt and spices, then poached gently and sliced after it cools. It is a favorite Nanjing duck dish, often eaten at room temperature as an appetizer and lighter than roast duck.1,3,4,6,7
Accounts of salted duck's popularity in late Qing Nanjing cite Chen Zuolin's Jinling Wuchan Fengtu Zhi without a year; another mentions Zhang Tongzhi's 1947 list of Jinling delicacies. Both are second-hand: no dated original text was found and neither original was checked, so its age remains undetermined.1,3
Nanjing in Jiangsu is known as the duck capital. Local duck dishes include salted duck and Nanjing banya, the longer-cured duck that keeps.1,5
There are 4 steps: a dry-salt cure, a rest in brine, drying, and a slow simmer in water at 85 to 95 degrees Celsius. One home recipe toasts salt and Sichuan pepper, rubs it on the duck for several hours, then simmers briefly and lets the duck finish in the hot liquid under a lid; another toasts salt, star anise and Sichuan pepper, cures the duck for 1 day, then simmers it gently and rests it.1,6,7
Salted duck cannot be kept long once made, so the longer-cured banya is easier to transport. This explanation is second-hand, and the listed sources give no further reason.1
A December 2019 report records over 100 million ducks eaten in Nanjing each year, a city known as the duck capital. A November 1, 2006 report records salted duck entering Jiangsu's provincial heritage list, while another account gives 2007; the dates conflict, and the official list has not been checked.1,2,5
Legend has it that in the early Ming, when Nanjing was the capital, Zhu Yuanzhang banned the killing of roosters, so people turned to duck, and salted duck even reached the court table.
Told in: A Nanjing tale, retold only in general terms by English Wikipedia, whose entry is also tagged as needing citations; no dated text recording the story was found.
It is said that ducks made in the eighth lunar month, when the osmanthus blooms, carry the scent of osmanthus in the meat, which is why salted duck is also called osmanthus duck. This is a popular belief, not a measured fact.
Told in: A Nanjing belief; Chinese Wikipedia quotes an old book saying everyone believed it, and treats it as a belief rather than fact.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is my simplified home version. I read two published recipes by two different recipe writers and took the general idea from each; the amounts and timings are my own choices. I skip the brine rest and the drying step, so it is not exactly what Nanjing shops do.
Allergens: sesame
