recipe with Sichuan peppercorns? from todays NY times food folks (indent is the recipe):
A week ago, I was sitting in a black-box theater at Carriageworks in Sydney, interviewing the chef and restaurateur Kylie Kwong in front of an audience of Australian readers of The Times. It was an intimate conversation, filled with revelations about Ms. Kwong’s past and future plans, and there were a few moments when she went silent to think and the room nearly vibrated with anticipation about what she might say.
At the end of our conversation, I opened the floor to questions from the audience. Some were personal, others philosophical, and at least one went straight to the kitchen. A man asked, “How do you make duck?”
Ms. Kwong clapped her hands in delight, then delivered what I knew right then would be this Wednesday’s homily: a no-recipe recipe, a way to cook without precise instruction, a promise that deliciousness will come if only you can follow a narrative lead.
Find a duck or some duck breasts, she said, and rub the skin with salt and crushed Sichuan peppercorns, then let everything sit overnight in the fridge to dry. The next day, bring the duck to room temperature and steam it in a basket until it is well and truly cooked through — around an hour and a half for a whole duck. I think you could do it in an Instant Pot: 20 minutes.
Allow the meat to rest and cool, and then, if it’s a whole duck you’ve cooked, split it down the center and gently lift the meat away from the breast bones. Dust the meat with some more salt and Sichuan peppercorn, and then with a few tablespoons of flour. Heat a cup of oil in a wok, then shallow-fry the duck until it’s crispy.
Serve with stir-fried vegetables, rice and chile sauce. That is an outstanding thing to do.