Fresh duck spring rolls

(made approx 200)

So once or twice a year Paul and I seem to get involved with helping to cater or organise the catering for a friend's wedding. This is both extremely joyful for us, as well as somewhat stressful. I do acknowledge that the stress is generally self-inflicted as we like to come up with some crazy idea of what to cater... this time around we decided to embark on the most exciting duck adventure EVER! We wanted to serve peking duck but ended up deciding on these fresh duck spring rolls because, well, it's pretty hard to serve 200 pieces of peking duck and still have it as good as it should be - crispy skin, soft pastry wrap, crispy cucumber and shallots...

So with some consultation of a few wise people, mostly my brother who is a pronounced peking duck lover, and my mum who is extremely practical and great at improvising, we decided on this fresh duck pancake. It's simple, fresh, tasty and well, it's duck!! So the day before the wedding Paul set out to Cabramatta (fighting traffic for 1.5hrs both ways) and bought 7 roast ducks (we were being excessive, yes). We did some research (i.e. eating duck for a couple of weeks in a row) into which duck place was the best, and have decided that Yummy BBQ is our favourite.

Ducks on mass :D

This adventure was broadly successful, however i do regret making the pancakes the night before as they did go soggy by the morning :'( Definitely a rookie error never to be made again, so if you're thinking about making this, PLEASE spare yourself the distress and just wake up early to do it! The rolling doesn't take that long, the prep work actually took a couple hours between the two of us, i guess it always does but i conveniently forget until the next event... Nonetheless, I now feel more skilful at shaving a duck to its core - sort of something i've always wanted to perfect!

Prep time: 2hrs (or only 20-30min if you're preparing significantly less, e.g. one duck's worth)

Cooking/folding time: 1.5-2hrs (again only 20-30min if preparing less), or possibly less depending how many people on board

Ingredients
5 roast ducks
3 packs of 50 spring rolls (8" squares) - makes 300 pieces if you use it all
10 cucumbers
2 bunches shallots
3 bunches radish (approx 15-20 pieces)
3 bunches mint
5 apples (optional)

Dipping sauce
1/2 jar Hoisin sauce, diluted with approx 1 C water (or to taste)
sesame oil 

Method
1. Defrost the spring roll pastry.
2. Prepare the ingredients by;
a) Deseed the cucumber and cut into thin slices (quarter length-wise, remove the seeds then cut into thin slices). Ensure this is dried out - ideally try to leave in the fridge to dry out for a few hours, or absorb the moisture with a paper towel. 
NB. If preparing a day in advance, replace cucumber with shredded carrot as the cucumber will moisten the pastry too much overnight!
b) Wash and cut the radish into thin slices.
c) Cut the shallots into thin slices.
d) Cut the apple (optional) into thin slices 
NB. We omitted for the mass batch but was quite fresh when we trialled it!
e) Remove the skin and meat from the duck

From top left (counter-clockwise); a) Cucumber cut into thin slices, b) radish, c) shallots, d) spring roll pastry e) duck deboned and cut into thin slices

3. Remove one piece of pastry, leaving the rest covered with a damp cloth to avoid it drying out. Place a few slices of the cucumber, radish, apple, shallot and duck across the pastry, then roll and wrap. Dab your finger in a bit of water and run along the edge of the end of the pastry to seal.
Repeat with remaining pastry, then cut in half with scissors.
4. Prepare the sauce by diluting the hoisin sauce to desired consistency and strength, then add in some sesame oil to taste!

Happy snaps from the day; jumping castle, 150 Portugese tarts from Sweet Belem (seriously the best portugese tarts in Sydney!), gelato store, and fairy floss!

Us with the newly-weds!