Healthy and delicious Chinese crispy duck lettuce wraps made with quick and easy Singapore style rice noodles and lots of fresh toppings.
As I talked about in my previous post (here), crispy duck is such a classic and delicious Chinese dish that is virtually always off limits to us gluten free people. There aren’t a lot of gluten free/cross-contamination aware Chinese restaurants out there and although it’s getting better slowly, so I hear,Β they are still very few and far between. At least here in the UK where I live. And if even the London Chinese restaurant scene hasn’t quite caught up with our gluten free needs yet, that says it all really.
Having said that, more and more gluten free products are popping up on Chinese supermarket shelves and this has made cooking authentic Chinese food at home increasingly easier. You can now find quite a few gluten free soy sauces as well as gluten free versions of hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, etc. even gluten free Chinese rice wine!
There’s nothing stopping us now! Well, except perhaps time… lol And you will need to set a good amount of time aside to make crispy duck, but as I said in my previous post, make a large batch, freeze the leftovers and it’ll all be worth it!
That’s what I do and thanks to the big batch I made a couple of days ago,Β these amazing crispy duck lettuce wrapsΒ came to life! They were so yummy and a much healthier way to enjoy crispy duck than the usual Chinese pancakes and all that stuff.
Here are the products that I used:
Datu Puti soy sauce:
This is a naturally gluten free dark soy sauce that can be found in Chinese/Asian supermarkets (or on the Internet). It’s by far my favourite and the closest one I’ve tried to ‘normal’ soy sauce so I highly recommend it. To top it off, the bottle is massive and much cheaper than what you can get in the free from section of supermarkets – Β£1.60 for 1L!
Ko-Lee rice vermicelli noodles:
You’d think all rice noodles should be fine, but due to cross-contamination risks during the manufacturing process (and the fact that many brands imported from Asia don’t include a may contain warning on the label), we’re recommended to stick to those that are certified gluten free (as advised by Coeliac UK as well).
I get these from Morrisons (the world food section) for about 70p a pack which is a bargain!
Ingredients
- Gluten free Chinese crispy duck (about two legs worth) – {recipe here}
- Quick SingaporeΒ noodles {see recipe below}
- Romaine lettuce (or lettuce of your choice)
- Fresh coriander
- 2-3 Spring onions
- 1/2 bell pepper
- 1 carrot
- 1 fresh red chilli
- Half cucumber
- Soy or tamari sauce
Yields 2-3 portions
Singapore noodles Ingredients
- 100g rice vermicelli noodles
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 Tbsp ground turmeric
- 1/2 Tbsp curry powder
- 1 tspΒ ginger powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- Black pepper
- A bit of water
Note:Β Datu Puti is quite a strong soy sauce so if you’re using tamari sauce instead, you may want to add a bit more than 1 Tbsp.
For the Singapore noodles:
- Bring a pan of lightly salted water to boil, add the noodles and cook for a few minutes until al dente. Test them from time to time to make sure they don’t end up overcooked.
- Then you’re going to want to rinse them a few times to get rid of excess starch and prevent them from sticking together. To do this, drain the rice noodles in a colander, add them back into the pan, fill with cold water, stir with a fork and drain again. Repeat until the water is clear. 2-3 times should do the trick.
- Add all the ingredients to the noodles: soy sauce, turmeric, curry powder, ginger, garlic and black pepper + a bit of water to help mix everything together and stop the noodles from sticking together.Β The best way to do this is to use 2 forks and mix gently.
Note: don’t let the noodles sit around before adding the flavourings or they will stick together.
For the lettuce wraps:
- Cook the crispy duck and strip the meat from the bones. {recipe here}
- Wash all the veg.
- Finely chop the spring onions, bell pepper and fresh chilli. Cut the cucumber into slices. Grate the carrot
- Add some rice noodles into each lettuce leaf with crispy duck and a mixture of all the veg on top.
- Serve with fresh coriander on top and a bit of tamari or diluted soy sauce.
Enjoy!
Related: Gluten Free Chinese Crispy Duck
Looks amazing!! π
Thanks!! π