It is a specialty dish of Sidajiayu Restaurant in Beijiao. After gentle simmering with old male duck, mature winter melon and dried mandarin peels, the soup is clear and nourishing, replete with refreshing aroma. Wang Shixiong, a 19-century Chinese doctor believed that duck could dispel unnecessary heat from organs and nourish “yin” of one’s body. Li Yu, a 17-century gourmet said: “Female fowls are usually the best, but ducks are the opposite; young poultries are usually the most valued, but older ducks are better.”

It is also called “kui hua ya”(or sunflower duck), because of the resemblances. This recipe is recorded in Authentic Delicacies, a Cantonese cookery book finished during the Guangxu Period of the Qing Dynasty. Later, Shundenese chefs transformed the traditional recipe with sheer creativity. A master chef Cai Jinhuai used “chuan”(or blanching), to cook the duck slices with soup while Luo Funan, a Top 10 Chef, made it into a sunflower-shaped dish with marinated duck slices.

It’s also known as plum goose in “zengzi”, a wooden rice steamer. It adopts the traditional way of “zeng” steaming and uses plums as a condiment. Season and stuff the frying-fragrant chopped ginger and garlic inside the goose; then steam in “zengzi” to preserve the gentle succulence of meat and the original taste of all the ingredients. It’s said that in the late Ming Dynasty, a Shundenese named Huang Shijun cooked the goose with plum after he got the first place in the final imperial examination. Therefore, people also call the dish “Zhuang yuan e”, or the number one scholar goose.

Goose has been a centerpiece of Shundenese feasts since ancient times. And this is one of Ronggui’s time-honored classics, mostly served in feasts that celebrate the first month of a newborn and birthday of the elderly. The dish is named after Penggong(or Peng Zu), a legendary long-lived saint in Taoism. It uses symbolic ingredients like young ginger and black vinegar, which tastes sour, or “sun” in Cantonese, a homonym of grandchild. People hope for longevity and fertility through this dish. The traditional Penggong  goose of Longde Restaurant won the gold medal for hot dishes at the 5th World Championship of Chinese Cuisine.