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althene

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Posted 27 February 2011 - 01:52 AM

I am a huge fan of the chinese dish after tasting it at a restaurant in Chinatown. And since, I love the dish so much, I have decided to use it for my HACCP study for catering establishments.

There have been alot of issues lately like that of our local government here regulating imports from frozen ducks from indonesia, japan and china in relation to the
safety of peking ducks and alot of contradicting articles too whether or not it is safe to prepare it the traditional way or through the recommendations of the USFDA. (traditional methods leave the duck to hang at room temperature for 5-6h). An article on one website even mentioned that the bird flu virus still existed at the duck even in its frozen state. Since viruses usually need a living source to attach to, is this also possible? The California government has allowed ducks to be prepared the traditional way but with some guidelines after testing a sample microbiologically.

Just curious though, is it really safe or not?

Would appreciate studies or related articles that can prove that it is safe to do it the traditional way (mostly due to pH and acidity related marinades).

to our good health and food safety! cheers guys!


Edited by althene, 27 February 2011 - 02:07 AM.

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GMO

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Posted 27 February 2011 - 10:07 AM

Interesting topic and although it's not my field I've done a bit of searching for you. These might be useful:

http://www.medicalne...icles/33159.php

http://www.food.gov....flu/birdflufaq/

http://www.nhs.uk/li...apikey=AKSPWCCD

http://www.foodquali..._Flu_Fears.html

From what knowledge I do have, I believed that people who had caught H5N1 had been in close quarters with live poultry which is a long way from a cooked bird.

On the micro / food safety side, common sense would say "no" to the traditional technique but I have no basis for backing that up and there may be a couple of ways to say "yes".

First of all, perhaps it is worth considering what time of year the dish is eaten traditionally in China. I have no idea, but I suspect it was not a traditional every day dish and so more likely to be eaten around Chinese New Year (ie in winter). Now this makes a big difference to food safety. If you're leaving a duck to hang (in a breeze I believe) in winter in China, the ambient temperature is probably similar (if not colder) than a chiller anyway. So perhaps your answer is that the traditional method is actually very similar to the results you would achieve by hanging the ducks in a chiller with fast air flow for the 5-6 hours?

Secondly, the ducks are hung up before cooking. Now it's not ideal, it will increase the microbiological loading of the meat, however, we are about 2 generations (if not 1 for poorer families like my Mother's) away from houses without fridges in the UK. What people would do would be to buy a piece or pieces of meat from the butcher and put it on a marble slab in the pantry and cook it that evening. Of course this was when houses were colder and pantries were cool.

I'm not saying it's ideal, nor am I saying it's sensible nowadays as you would want something industrially which is more controllable but I think we forget sometimes how much things have changed in the last 60 years.


Edited by GMO, 27 February 2011 - 10:09 AM.

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Charles.C

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Posted 27 February 2011 - 12:08 PM

Dear Althene,

Nice to hear from you again. And congratulations over your ISO 22000 experiences mentioned in another thread. :thumbup:

Interesting starter topic.

You might find the extract below interesting. Taken from some conference proceedings 1997 so I’m not sure how well the “duck” comments (sort of by-product from the main report) have withstood time (apparently with some modifications after re-reading yr first post again?) but in the case of the “sprouts” were unfortunately somewhat prophetic.

More encouragingly, I hv also enclosed a retail HACCP analysis for Peking Duck presented via a process layout. Not sure how close this is to yr own process of course. (maybe you hv already seen this link ?)

A majority of the sprout growers in California are not members of the ISGA. They are perhaps uninformed of the many outbreaks of Salmonella and E.coli O157:H7 that are linked to sprouts. Perhaps a few of the sanitation practices they already exercise are more than adequate. After all, bean sprouts have been around for over a century with no problems. And alfalfa sprouts, to their knowledge, have never been proven to directly cause any food poisoning.
I'd like to consider this lack of concern as an example of Peking Duck syndrome. As you know, Peking Duck is a specially prepared Chinese dish. It's known all over the world. This dish has been around for centuries and enjoyed by many. Nobody has known to die from eating Peking Duck. But in making Peking Duck, a raw uncooked duck is hung up for several hours, or sometimes overnight, at room temperature. This process makes the skin crispy.
Under food and health standards this is illegal. I think from what I've read it's illegal. And local and State officials several years ago attempted to put an end to this practice. They were met with much resistance, and still they are often ignored. Chefs say it's been done for, you know, this way for centuries and nobody has died from eating it.
Although the method for preparing Peking Duck is obviously unsafe, it has so-called survived the test of time. And this would be perhaps the same attitude for the sprout growers. But eventually, as far as the Peking Duck, whatever happened here is that a few restaurant owners prevailed on one or two of their customers who happened to be a member of the State Legislature, and through these consumers the chefs were able to obtain that so-called Peking Duck exception to the health code.
Sprout growers have been growing sprouts for decades and believe they have done nothing wrong. None of the customers, to their knowledge have gotten sick from eating sprouts. They are proud of their products. And, in fact, the production processes have improved over the last several years, compared with the practices utilized decades ago.
As a final comment I just want to just briefly say that I think the problem with sprouters is that they are not informed, and not educated about the severity of Salmonella and E.coli. Those of us who have participated with ISGA and through the communications in that organization have become really aware of the severity of the situation.
A majority of the sprout growers are not members of the organization. They are not aware, other than what they've read in the newspaper, that Salmonella outbreaks have been statistically linked to sprouts. And to them that's a very vague concept.
A representative of the industry, we are taking a positive aggressive approach. The industry is in jeopardy.


Attached File  FSIS - Sprouts and Peking Duck.pdf   47.78KB   30 downloads
Attached File  haccp - peking duck.pdf   213.5KB   51 downloads

Rgds / Charles.C

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Charles.C


GMO

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Posted 27 February 2011 - 08:40 PM

Interestingly I was once told by a lecturer that the EU were planning to ban bergamot as a food ingredient until a small section of the British public were up in arms due to Earl Grey tea containing bergamot. (I would have liked to have seen that demonstration. Presumably a lot of cardigans and comfy slippers would have been involved.)

Anyway, it's an interesting idea to ban things which are traditional and have been in place for years.

If you want to look at something which seems on slight dodgy ground from a food safety point of view, look at Parma, Serrano and Iberico hams. Personally I would hate to work on those products, it would scare me witless to just rely on the curing to make it safe but I'm very glad that lots of people do work on them because they are some of my most favourite-ist things in the world. Oooh some good cured pig is a beautiful, beautiful thing.


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Jason H.Z.C.

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Posted 28 February 2011 - 05:13 AM

Dear all,

It is exited that Chinese troditional dish is accepted and liked by a people from other country.

Well, just one more question, does the Peking Duck you had soly tasted spicy or salty? Or do you feel no special taste when you had it without adding sauce?

It is important for answering the aforementioned question because if you feel any taste(salty/spicy) for duck without adding any sauce, you were not eating a troditional Chinese Roast Duck.

Normally people in China divided the treating methods for Roast Peking Duck into two ways.

One way is fit for Catering preparation, the other way is for industry production.

As per the first way, living ducks are used to prepare the dishes. The general flow is
a,catching duck then killing them
b,Removing Feathers
c,Cutting claws
d,cracking a small hole then removing internal tissues from such hole.
e,Washing inside of ducks
f,Using hot water(100 degree C) to blanch the surface of ducks several times
g,Coating sugar solution on the whole surface of ducks
h,hanging on the ducks in normal temperature for several hrs to ensure the csugar coating is dry and adhesive on the duck surface
i,hanging in the oven for roasting(above 230 degree C, 40-50 min)
j,slicing the roasted duck and placing on the plates
k,enjoy your duck dish

Normally in this way, the cooked ducks will be soon consumed by restrant clients.

Second way is normally used in industry production:
a, Defrost the frozen ducks(Normally feather, tissues and claws of frozen ducks have been removed),
b, Checking and removing the residue of the feather or tissues)
c, adding salt for salting(can not remember how long)
d, adding sugar solution on suface of ducks
e, frying the ducks
f, cooling then adding ducks into sanwich pot for cooking
g, cooling then packing the ducks
h, sterilization by retort.
i, Secondary packing

So the ducks processed in accordance with the second way taste salty/spicy and the chewiness is not as good as ducks prepared as per the first method. However, it have quite a longer shelflife than first one.

Best regards,

Jason


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Kind Regards,

Jason



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