By Request Betty Shimabukuro

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Mochi Duck is a
challenge to recreate

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Certain dishes are best left to the professionals, but when they are particularly delicious, the challenge to recreate them at home can be irresistible.

Marc Takeno, who describes himself as an "ex-pat Hawaiian, now living in Seattle," enjoyed the Chinese specialty Mochi Duck during a family dinner on a visit home. He'd like to try making it himself.

This is an ambitious proposition. Mochi Duck from scratch first of all involves removing the bones from a duck. Then you marinate it, hang it up to air-dry the skin, stuff it and deep-fry it. The only easy part is making the stuffing, a stir-fry of mochi rice and bits of shrimp and pork.

June Tong, author of "Popo's Kitchen," says she hasn't made the dish in years, as it is a lot of trouble. When she wrote her cookbook in 1988, she would've started with a raw duck, she says, but these days she'd just buy a roast duck, rinse it and stuff it.

Unless you have a very cooperative butcher, you'll need to do the boning yourself, either way. Tong says to slice through the skin at the spine and use a good pair of kitchen scissors to cut the breast meat away from the rib cage.

Another alternative used in simpler recipes is to buy duck breasts and roll them around the stuffing.

But for all the over-achievers out there, here is Tong's complete recipe:

Mochi Duck

1 4-pound duck, boned, legs and wings removed
3 cups vegetable oil, for deep-frying

>> Marinade:
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons sherry
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup minced green onion

>> Stuffing:
1-1/2 cups uncooked mochi (glutinous) rice
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup dried baby shrimp
1/2 cup diced ham
1/2 cup diced cooked lup cheong
1/4 cup minced green onion
1/4 cup minced cilantro

Combine marinade ingredients and marinate duck 1 hour in refrigerator. Keep the shape and skin of the duck intact.

Drain duck, reserving marinade. Pat dry. Hang in a cool, airy place 2 hours.

To make stuffing: Rinse rice, then soak in water 1 hour; drain. Cook in rice cooker with 1-1/2 cups water.

Heat oil in a wok or sauté pan, then stir-fry the stuffing ingredients, adding them one-by-one in the order listed. Add reserved marinade and let sizzle. Stir in rice. (Depending on the size of your duck, you may not need all the rice).

Stuff duck. Sew up the openings.

Heat the 3 cups vegetable oil until very hot in a wok or large pan. Deep-fry the duck, turning if necessary, until golden brown on all sides. Remove duck, then allow oil to reheat. Deep-fry duck again 1 minute to keep skin crispy.

Note: If using a pre-roasted duck, make half the marinade and use it to flavor the stuffing. Fry duck just to crisp the skin.

Nutritional information unavailable.

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Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.