Why Waste Roast Duck?

Who hasn't ordered Peking Duck at a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong? I do it about 6 times a year, easy! Although I can order the same duck served up to 3 ways, usually one duck dish per meal is more than I can handle since menus always spoil us with choices. Who wants duck, duck and more duck when I only have one stomach to fill at a time? But did you know that you are always allowed to take away the duck carcass? You paid for it, didn't you? Then you can make fried rice like I did with mine this week.

Because all it takes is this...

Eggs, Roast duck meat, cold cooked rice, celery, carrots, onions, ginger and spring onion

Or how about this on a wintery Hong Kong evening? A roast duck bone broth simmered for about an hour before a quick boil with silken tofu, bak choy and salty eggs for a delicious, comforting soup?

Quick-boiled soup with tofu, bak choy and salty eggs

Because this is even simpler by using only this...

Silken tofu, salty eggs, bak choy and cilantro

Truth be told any popular Peking Duck restaurant worth the time to visit will be serving up dozens of these delicious roast birds every evening and I have been informed that up to 70-80 carcasses are thrown out nightly by each and every one of these establishments (yes, I asked and they told). So please, if you can take one carcass home, why not take two or three because if you ask nicely, they always say yes...they trash them anyway.

So next time bag them, pick those bones and get a couple more meals out of that roast duck! I've already got roast duck risotto, roast duck ravioli, roast duck lettuce wraps & roast duck congee playing on mind for the next time I get my hands on some more.

This is a tremendously inspiring concept for my cooking classes and it brings awareness to the food wastage issue in Hong Kong. Did you know that we waste over 3,200 tonnes of food every day in this city alone?