A bit of inspiration and planning is all it takes to breathe new life into stale leftovers. This dinner punches above its weight class in flavour, while remaining light on the calories.

Time: 2/5
Stir fries can’t take long – at least good ones.

Effort: 3/5
Or less, if your duck is already deboned

Zombie Duck for Dinner

The following recipe is an extreme example of using home cooking skills to upcycle leftovers. My SO’s family had Cantonese roast duck for dinner and had plenty of duck left. The leftovers got made into duck soup for dinner the next day.

You might think that would be the end of the story – the duck has given all its got to flavour the broth. But frugality is a virtue, and my SO brought back the meat after the soup was gone, with the hopes that I might be able to breathe some more life back into it.

And boy did I. The bones got roasted and made into another batch of Duck, Shiitake and Winter Melon Soup. But that left the flesh, which by this point was pretty tough and dry. No worries, because stir frying works around both of those problems.

The first thing is to dice the meat into super small pieces. That way the knife does a lot of the work of breaking the food down, so your teeth doesn’t have to do as much. Dicing up the meat also shortens the meat fibers in each piece, which comes apart easier as you chew.

This also fits into the next part, which is to toss the meat in a sauce. Cutting up the meat opens up a lot of surface area where flavour and moisture can cling to and revitalise the duck.

I also decided to stir fry the duck with some mushrooms and serve it as a lettuce wrap for several reasons. It would add some different textures as well as moisture to the meal, and it kept the calories low. And as it was the third time my SO had duck this week, changing up the form factor really helped keep things feeling fresh.

All in all, this was a pretty rewarding recipe to make. A bit of thinking and planning gave a third life to food that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill long ago. And reducing food waste is one of the ways I like to reduce the carbon impact of my diet, without needing to make big changes like going vegetarian. But alas, all things come to an end, and the life of this duck meat came to a close in its third reincarnation as a duck and mushroom lettuce wrap.

Posts since the last recipe that was actually served with rice: 5

Dramatis Personae

Served two.

400g duck

This could be any leftover protein, even food that tends to dry out like chicken breasts or pork loin. Dicing it with a knife will tenderise it by breaking up the grain structure, and the sauce will make up for the dryness.

You could go all meat, all mushroom, or anywhere in between. So this recipe can be as vegan as you want it to be.

100g fresh shiitake mushrooms

… Or thereabouts. Basically, about two handfuls. Shiitakes weren’t my first choice – I wanted to use king oysters, but nobody was selling them and fresh shiitakes were cheap.

Use whatever you can get your hands on, as long as the mushrooms are big enough that you can cut nice meaty cubes out of them. Smaller mushrooms like shimeji or enoki won’t give the same texture.

1 medium carrot

Not a deliberate inclusion, but I had it around so why not? A bit of extra veg never hurt nobody. Washed, peeled and finely diced to add some colour, texture and sweetness.

Stir fry sauce

Just my standard go-to sauce, the same one I use for almost all my stir fries. I never measure it, but it’s a roughly 1:1:1 ratio of soy sauce, oyster sauce and Shaoxing wine, plus a half teaspoon or so of sugar. Sesame oil optional, but highly recommended. Don’t skip the Shaoxing wine, it’s likely the missing link between your home cooking and restaurant Chinese food!

Aromatics

A few cloves of garlic, and/or shallots. I highly recommend using both. Dice it fine and toss it in at the end to keep them tasting fresh and strong.

The duck also came with some peanuts, which I couldn’t be bothered to pick out. So in they go, and it was pretty good too.

3 heads of lettuce

Get more than you need, because only the smaller, inner leaves are strong enough to act as a cup. The big outer leaves tend to be too floppy to hold their shape, but you can always save them for a stir fry later.

Executive summary

1. Separate the lettuce leaves. Save the sturdier inner leaves and wash well. Drain and reserve.
2. Finely dice the duck, carrots and the aromatics. Cut the mushrooms into a larger dice.
3. Preheat the wok (or pan) and lightly oil it. Get ingredients for the sauce together.
4. Stir fry mushrooms until they cook down and brown slightly.
5. Add duck, carrots and aromatics. Stir until fragrant and heated through.
6. Add the sauce, and stir until combined. Serve family-style with lettuce on the side, or in individual lettuce cups.

Play by Play

Always wash your veggies! All sorts of things can be between the leaves of your lettuce. This little fellow was alive and kicking when I inadvertently unroofed its home.

Three heads of lettuce, washed and separated into hearts and outer leaves.

Getting the knife work out of the way. I also separated the skin from the flesh of the duck, so I can render some fat out of them and save on having to stir fry with extra oil.

I’m cooking the bigger lettuce leaves separately and serving them on the side. I’m going to dirty the pan later anyway, and any leftovers can go towards a new meal.

I’m lightly liking the pan by rendering the fat from the duck skin on low heat. Mushrooms go in once that has happened. They shrink by a lot, so keep that in mind when dicing them.

Carrots, aromatics and duck in next. None of these need a lot of time, or a lot of heat.

Sauce in, stir to combine, and done.

Looks pretty good, if I say so myself.

Cheers! Here’s to the duck’s third culinary life.

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