You can use this technique to make tea smoked duck, chicken, or any other bird (or really any meat or even tofu).

Marinade

Use any marinade you want. I like this one for duck or chicken.

Ingredients

• One head celery, stem end discarded, the rest cut into chunks
• Any spices you like (try Sichuan peppercorn, chile powder, Chinese five spice mix, or anything you like, a teaspoonful or two of each)
• Garlic, a few cloves
• Ginger, a 5 cm piece or so, peeled and thinly sliced crosswise
• Soy sauce, a couple of tablespoons
• Sugar or honey, a teaspoonful

Blitz these in a blender until very smooth. You might need to add a bit of water to get things started. If you have any chunky bits of ginger peel, add those to the marinade.

Bird

Take a whole duck, chicken, or anything. Cut it into pieces of a size and shape you like. As you’re doing this, keep in mind that you’ll want to brown at least the skin side of each piece in a frying pan after smoking; make sure your pieces will lend themselves easily to this step.

Smoking pan

Ingredients

• Raw rice, one cup or so (any kind of rice will do; its purpose is to keep the aromatics from burning up too fast)
• Aromatics (try Sichuan peppercorn, black pepper, cinnamon, star anise, citrus peel, or anything you like; a teaspoon of each will do)
• Brown sugar, a couple of tablespoons (or white sugar plus a bit of molasses)
• Tea leaves (loose or from a bags that you’ve torn open), about 1/4 cup

Take a pan that is not precious to you ( I used an aluminium pan from a takeout meal) or fashion one from heavy duty foil or double layer or regular foil. In this pan, mix the smoking ingredients. If you’re using any whole spices (like cinnamon bark, whole star anise, whole cloves), push those to the bottom of the pan.

Procedure

1. Place the cut pieces in a bowl with the marinade and refrigerate at least overnight, preferably for a day or two
2. Take a Dutch oven or other very heat resistant pot. Put your smoking pan in this and fashion some kind of rack (from wooden skewers or chopsticks that you’ve saved from takeout meals, for example) to sit on top of the pan. Arrange the meat pieces on this rack. Don’t let them touch the sides of the Dutch oven, as anything that touckes the sides would burn
3. Cover your Dutch oven (if it doesn’t have a tight fitting lid, use aluminium foil) and turn your cooktop to high. Once wisps of smoke appear, turn the heat down to medium and smoke until the meat is done (half an hour or so, but this could vary depending on the size of your pieces)
4. Heat some oil in a large skillet and fry at least the skin sides (or, if you like, all sides) of the pieces until browned to your liking (for duck very well browned and crisp; for other meats, anything goes)
5. Your smoked bird is now done. Serve it any way you want: with rice and veg, with noodles, cut into pieces and put in a sandwich… (Feel free to deglaze the frying pan and make a pan sauce or gravy, if you like.

Pictures

Marinade ingredients

Marinating

Smoking pan with rice, tea leaves, and aromatics

Chicken pieces arranged over smoking pan in Dutch oven

Wisps of smoke visible: time to turn down the cooktop to medium

Crisping the smoked chicken pieces in a frying pan

Smoked chicken, ready to enjoy