16-hour massage pepper-marinated duck & homemade Dongpo pork – HowToTrip’s 2018 festive menu revealed!

▲HowToTrip’s 2018 festive menu features the Divine Pepper-Marinated Duck, where chefs spend 16 hours massaging and marinating the duck to boost its flavor.

Reported and photographed by Lai Wenxuan / Taoyuan

As 2018 approaches and the Lunar New Year draws near, HowToTrip’s in-flight catering service has unveiled its first-ever Hakka cuisine for the year. The intricate Divine Pepper-Marinated Duck requires chefs to spend 16 hours massaging the duck to ensure it fully absorbs the special sauce, enhancing its flavor. Additionally, the always best-selling homemade Dongpo pork will be available in a limited run of just 300 portions this year. HowToTrip anticipates a 20% increase in revenue, with over 10,000 items expected to sell.

▲HowToTrip’s 2018 festive menu highlights Hakka flavors, featuring six new dishes.

Zhou Zhongping, manager of HowToTrip’s catering division, said the highlight of this year’s festive menu is the introduction of six new Hakka-inspired dishes, using local ingredients and traditional cooking methods. Moreover, HowToTrip’s festive meals are produced to the same high standards as airline food, ensuring absolute quality. The meals come in specially designed aluminum foil packaging that is resistant to both high and low temperatures, completely blocking water and air to preserve the original flavors. Once reheated, there’s no hint that they were frozen.

▲The new Divine Pepper-Marinated Duck dish requires the chef to manually massage the duck for 16 hours to infuse it with flavor.

This year’s newly launched Divine Pepper-Marinated Duck combines techniques from Singapore’s pepper crab. It uses premium Taiwanese ducks, along with fresh pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, spices, and a sauce made from 16 kinds of Chinese herbs. Chefs spend 16 hours massaging the duck by hand to let the meat fully absorb the sauce, enhancing its taste. It is then lightly fried at low temperature for five and a half minutes, keeping the meat tender without excess grease. A final two-hour steaming process allows the spices to slowly penetrate the meat, resulting in rich, freshly-cooked flavors.

In addition to the Divine Pepper-Marinated Duck, this year’s new dishes also include stewed chicken with pig’s tripe, tangerine-flavored chicken leg rolls, pickled vegetable hotpot, braised pork belly with preserved vegetables, and lotus root with dried shrimp. All are crafted with traditional recipes and enriched with secret seasonings, offering unique and unforgettable tastes.

▲The unique pepper aroma penetrates deeply, yet there's no overwhelming spiciness. The dish remains incredibly flavorful without being too heavy. (Strong emphasis)