Tea Leave Roasted Duck (茶香熏鸭)

This is a popular recipe from Wenxue city. Since I am not a turkey fan, we cooked this for Thanksgiving dinner, instead of turkey.

Ingredients:

For duck
Duck - one, defrosted
Salt and pepper - used to make pepper salt
For smoking
Rice - 1-2 cups
Flour - 1-2 cups
Sugar - 1-2 cups
Tea leaves - 1-2 cups
Bay leaves (香叶) - 4-6 pieces
Cloves (丁香) - 1 tsp
Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum 花椒) - 1 TBSP
Star anise (八角) - 4-6 pieces
Dried citrus peel - (陈皮) - 1-2 pieces

Steps:

1. On a hot frying pan, fry grounded pepper and salt together to make pepper salt.

 2. Rub duck with pepper salt, both inside and outside. Put in a plastic bag and marinate overnight in refrigerator.

3. Preheat oven to 400°F.
4. In a turkey roast pan, put all ingredients for smoking, (Lay a layer of aluminum foil at the bottom so that it is easier to clean the pan later). Then put the duck on the rack.

 5. If your roast pan has cover, that will be great. Otherwise, use aluminum foil to fully seal the pan to make a smoking chamber.

6. Put roast pan in oven and bake for 3 hours. The meat should be juicy and tender.