The quest to make the perfect Peking duck is opening doors for this Vietnamese-American
Radiologist Hong Pham’s dedication to making roast duck has seen him start his own catering business and even cook the bird at weddings
Vietnamese-American Hong Pham and his wife Kim are passionate about good food – so much so that once they like eating something, they learn everything they can about how to make it.
They have tried their hand at Vietnamese food like banh cuon (steamed rice rolls) and doi huyet (blood sausage) and have even made a durian ice cream semifreddo pie.
Content includes Pham pulling out glistening maroon-coloured roast ducks from a steel cylindrical charcoal-fired roaster and carving them up to be served in various ways, from traditional Peking duck style – enclosed in steamed thin wrappers with spring onions and sweet bean sauce – to tacos and ramen.
Pham started making the roast ducks in a conventional oven at home. While they tasted fine, he felt they could be better.
“I learned a lot on YouTube and I realised that when I was watching all these videos in Asia, they all had this oven, this duck roaster. I was like, I need to get my hands on that, because that seems to be the most common way of cooking,” he says.