Almond pressed duck

Almond pressed duck, also known as Mandarin pressed duck (Chinese: 窩燒鴨; pinyin: wōshāoyā; Jyutping: wo1 siu1 ngaap3 ), was a popular Cantonese dish in Chinese and Polynesian-themed restaurants in the United States in the middle of the 20th century.

Crispy and boneless, it is deep-fried and served in either medium-sized pieces of uniform shape or as an entire duck.

[2] A Cantonese dish, one source says that it originated in the north of China and was brought south in the 17th century at the end of the Ming dynasty by the many people who fled the new Manchu rulers.

[3] There are at least three major variations in the method of preparing it, although both the taste and the general procedures remain fairly close.

Before this final cooking, however, some recipes call for the duck meat (with its skin discarded) to be shredded and then molded into a patty or patties; other recipes have the various pieces of the boned duck pressed firmly together within an envelope of the reserved skin;[4] a third method is to carefully bone the entire duck while preserving its appearance.