This weekend we cooked a roast duck. Yum. But surprisingly, with only two of us (and bear in mind there were roast potatoes etc involved) we couldn’t polish off the whole bird. Far from it.

So…in steps your favourite Chinese take away friend, roast Peking duck. Oh my. Those pancakes. A dollop of sticky sauce. With a little bit of crispy veg. YUM.

Who knew that is was actually a pretty easy peasy thing to do (especially if you have some ducky leftovers hanging about…slightly more effort if you have to roast your duck first).

Disclaimer: I didn’t make any plum sauce. Sorry guys. We all have our limits.

First, make your pancake dough.

Recipe for homemade Chinese Peking crispy duck pancakes

Serves four, comfortably. If you were having it as part of a bigger meal, maybe 6.

• 450 grams plain flour
• 310 ml just boiled water
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• sesame oil
• leftover duck (c. 2 legs at least)
• plum sauce
• 5 spice
• veg (2 spring onions, 1/4 cucumber, sprinkle of coriander if you fancy)

That’s all you need.  For your pancakes, simply put your flour in a bowl, stir in the boiling water, add the oil and then knead to make a firm dough. Put a damp teatowel over the dish (or clingfilm it) and leave it to the side for 30 mins.

In the meantime, use the meat you’ve stripped from the carcass (or strip your duck carcass now), cutting any big bits into tastier little pancake-sized morsels. For 4-6 you want the meat from around 1/2 a duck.

Make, beg, borrow or steal some plum sauce (I used plum chutney and it was MIGHTY FINE…possibly even better than plum sauce. Give it a whirl). Make some if you’re not lazy, like I am.

Chop some cucumber and spring onion into matchsticks. I threw in some coriander for good measure, because WHY NOT THAT’S WHY.

Get your oven on low, with a plate in it, so you can keep things warm.

Separate your pancake dough into 3 lumps, and roll each lump into a cylinder. Slice each cylinder into 8-10 lumps. Roll that lump into a nice round ball, then squish it flat with the palm of your hand.

Get a pan on the heat – medium high. Take two of your now flattened disks, and paint a little sesame oil onto each flat side (a pastry brush is mighty handy for this). Now stick the two disks together and roll them into a circle, as thin as you can really.

One by one, pop them into the pan. Let them puff and brown on one side (keep a constant eye, but probably around 20-30 seconds). They should naturally begin to peel apart.

When they’re cooked on both sides, peel apart and then fold in half. Place them on your plate in the (warm – around 60c) oven, and rinse a teatowel under the cold tap before rinsing it a bit and plopping it over the pancakes (this’ll keep them warm and stop them drying out). Every time you cook a pancake and add it, check the teatowel is still moist. If it’s drying, give it another dowsing and wring.

Once your pancakes are cooked and in the oven keeping warm under their damp cloth, batch cook your duck. All you need for this is 5 spice – add around a tsp or slightly less per batch of duck you add to the pan. The duck’s natural fat should act as your cooking fat. You want your pan still on medium-high. When some of the duck pieces have gone crozzley and you’re happy empty your pan and cook the next batch, until it’s all done. Now, load up your pancake, and munch!Yup yum! Enjoy! x