When I found this recipe I knew I had to make it. I found Wagashi Maniac mentioned on Seitan is My Motor and the recipe that popped up after I clicked on the link was this Yakitori recipe. It was pretty much all over after that. I ordered myself some mock duck from alles-vegetarisch and set the weekend aside for grilling. Wagashi Maniac is in German but with the help of Google Translate I was able to decipher most of it (plus Mike could read what I couldn’t understand). It is a really thoughtful and pretty blog though and I spent a lot of time skimming through the recipes and photos.
With the weather being absolutely perfect for grilling Mike and I got out our electric grill and set it up on the balcony. Even if the weather had been terrible I was way too set on grilling to change my plans. I was really excited because it was the first time we were going to use our grill and the first time we were trying the mock duck. I only made the dipping sauce and marinade for the mock duck as there is only two of us. I also made a couple of changes to the recipe,
- I substituted Shao hsing wine for the Sake in both the marinade and dipping sauce, as I didn’t have any Sake in the cupboards but I did have a big bottle of wine. Both are rice wines so it was an easy swap.
- I used dark soy sauce rather than tamari.
- I used brown sugar for the sugar component of the dipping sauce.
- I also didn’t fry the onion before chucking it in the pot (I didn’t read the recipe) however it worked fine.
- I also marinaded the duck over night.
The recipe was great and we absolutely loved it. We were impressed with the mock duck by Vantastic Foods.
It had a food texture and crisped up nicely on the grill while staying juicy on the inside. I did drain the oil off of it so it could take up the flavours of the marinade. It also didn’t have an over powering star anise/aniseed flavour that I find some mock ducks have. The flavour was subtle but definitely tasted like mock duck. The marinade fit this flavour so well and the dipping sauce was also fantastic. The dipping sauce was a nice additive for some of the smaller pieces of duck that dried out a little. While it was marinading in the fridge it smelt so so good, our mouths watered every time we gave it a stir. I will definitely been ordering this mock duck again to try in different recipes (a pizza may be next!) and will be making this recipe again……….. and again.
