Hope you all had a lovely weekend, everyone! By this time, I should be in Queenstown, NZ!! After almost a year of marriage, Alex and I are finally heading off to our honeymoon. We will be spending twelve nights in the South Island, renting a car so that we can listen to our hearts and drive to the many attractions in the South Island. Alex had just finished his Step 1 for medical school. For those of you who aren’t aware, it’s one of the hardest exams he has to take on his path to becoming a doctor. I’d say this is a well deserved vacation for him! Are any of you lovely readers from New Zealand or have been there? I’d love to hear tips or food recommendations! I admit our trip is mostly for the beautiful landscape and the myriad of activities (such as bungee jumping!!), but I’m always open to good food recommendations.
We love to travel. Of course, taking photographs and documenting our travel story has always been something we strive to do (China+Japan, California), so we’ve loaded up our gear. For you gear-lovers out there, isn’t it so hard to choose which lens to take? I have my favorites, certainly, but there’s always the silent but persistent voice asking me, what if? What if you need a longer lens? What if you need the widest lens you have? What if!!??? We ended up just choosing two bodies and three lens, so I hope that will be enough. I’ve scheduled a couple of posts while I’m gone, but for the most part I will be MIA. See you in two weeks! I’ve got some pretty amazing collaborations coming your way!
To hold you over, you can hop on over to Food52 to see the Roast Duck Lettuce Wraps article I wrote. I talk about lettuce wraps, the universality of wrapping meat in various materials, and this version including shredding roasted duck leg.
There are really only a couple of simple steps: 1) overnight marinade 2) roast 3) shred 4) wrap!!!
After it is all shredded, you can get the drippings from the original pan and toss the meat in it for some extra flavor, or you can omit this step.
The meat is done at this point. You can prepare the lettuce leaves, hoisin dipping sauce, and fresh sliced scallions. For dishes wrapping duck, I believe fresh scallions are necessary. To avoid a very strong taste, you can slice them very thinly and top as many as you prefer.
It’s ok to use your hands 🙂 Alternatively, you can just eat the meat directly with white rice!
Again, see the full recipe on Food52!
My mouth is watering, that duck looks absolutely perfect!!! Nothing screams comfort to me like crispy duck skin with some hoisin sauce, yum yum yum yum! Enjoy NZ! My friend just got back from a study abroad there and was absolutely raving about it, so I have no doubt that it’ll be a fabulous trip.
Meat wrapping for the win!! Your photos are as wonderful as ever! I hope you have tonnes of fun in NZ! Please upload a video of your bungee jump experience hehe
Have fun in NZ. My mom’s family is from Auckland and we might be going to visit them sometime next January-March. Have a wonderful trip! I’ve been meaning to cook duck at home but I’m having a hard time finding it at the regular grocery stores. Hopefully, I can get some soon and try out this recipe 🙂 it looks so good!
This is lovely, I’ve always wanted to do the duck dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar and it never occurred to me you could easily get the same crispy skin roasted duck at home, I’ve always seen weird procedures to separate the skin and make it crispy?
And ahhh you are so brave with the bungee jumping! I think I could do the jump once (a la cliff diving or sky diving) but not over and over bouncing around like crazy. Haha.
Happy Honeymoon!!!! This is another beautiful looking dish. Your photos make me drool! I love duck! What an awesome recipe! YUMMMM!
Omgness I can’t believe you’re in New Zealand, girl!!!! So excited for you and I have no doubt it will be the most beautiful trip ever. I haven’t been, but uhhhh hello, the pictures say it all, haha! And this recipe is out of this world~~~~
What crispy duck skin, oh, how I love that! – Wishing you a wonderful honeymoon, and a relaxing time after the stressful exam, I know what he´s going through being a doctor myself 🙂 PS hope you picked the right lenses!