Eye to eye with your dinner with whole roast duck

The sales receipt says "barbeque." This is anything but.

Seven days a week, a row of caramel-colored roast ducks hangs under heat lamps at the American Asian Food Market in Virginia Beach, necks gracefully bent over metal hooks, most all of the bird intact, heads, beaks, tongue, everything but the feet.

Crisp, succulent and richer than chicken, whole roast duck is a jarring sight in South Hampton Roads, that's for sure. But the market's general manager, Ian Cheng, said the Chinese delicacy is starting to catch on locally with Americans.

"It's mostly Chinese and Asian-Americans," Cheng said. "I see Americans buying them, too; not a lot."

About 60 ducks are sold at the market each week, Cheng said. They're shipped in by the case from Chinatown in New York City and then prepared on site using a several-step recipe.

First, a tube is inserted between the skin and the meat. Air is forced inside to separate the skin. This ensures a crisp skin, critical to successful roast duck. "We have to do this without ripping," Cheng said. "If you rip the skin, it's no good."

The stomach is then cleaned and stuffed with a secret blend of Chinese spices and the slit resealed with a pin. "The seasoning goes from inside to the meat," Cheng explained.

The duck is dipped in hot water to "cure" the skin, and then dipped in a sugar solution so that the skin will brown when it's cooked.

Before it goes into the oven, the duck is hung to dry for 24 hours in a cold room with constantly whirring fans.

"If it's not dry, the skin is no good," Cheng said. "That's the beauty, the skin."

Finally, the ducks are hung in an oven and roasted for about an hour. Then just about 11:30 a.m. each day, they're hung under the heat lights in the market's prepared-food section, just to the right of the cash registers. The birds can hang for a maximum of four hours before they must be removed, Cheng said.

If you order one, a man in an apron will chop the duck up for free. He'll also remove the head. But that's hardly authentic. Asians eat the tail, tongue, eye, brain, everything, according to the manager.

"In Chinese culture and Hong Kong, they want the head," Cheng said. "They want to see the head. Americans will not eat the head."

Many of his customers will for go the chopping and serve the duck Peking-style, slices of meat and skin rolled into thin pancakes along with hoisin sauce and spring onions.

To do this, put the duck on a broiler pan. Heat at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes on each side, "just to warm it," Cheng said. And wear an apron if you are chopping duck at home. It's quite juicy under the skin.

That's what we did with ours at a recent impromptu home happy hour. We set out the duck on a big, wooden cutting board. Nearby sat a stack of mu shu pancakes, some hoisin sauce and thinly sliced spring onions (buy all this when you get the duck). Everyone pulled off some duck, placed it on a pancake, added a slice of spring onion and a line of hoisin and rolled up his own appetizers. It was all very little trouble and earned rave reviews.

We've come to think of these delectable roast ducks like one of those grocery store rotisserie chickens. Only better.

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com