Yanling Steamed Duck in Broth 延陵鸭饺
Yanling Steamed Duck in Broth is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
Yanling Steamed Duck in Broth (延陵鸭饺) is a named local dish of Yanling (延陵) in Danyang (丹阳), Jiangsu: duck cut into pieces and steamed in a vessel for four hours, with the condensed steam collecting into a duck soup. The name yajiao, "duck dumplings", comes from the pieces, which have sharp edges and corners and look like dumplings.
How it is made
The Danyang city government is specific about the bird: a fat local Yanling duck of about five jin (roughly 2.5 kilograms) that has grown up eating rice grain. Ducks raised on mixed feed will not do, so buyers go out to the villages for free-range birds.
The duck is killed, plucked, washed and cut into pieces, then soaked in clean water for several hours to wash out the blood. The pieces are brought to the boil and skimmed of foam and blood, then put into a vessel inside a steamer and steamed for four hours, with the condensed steam dripping into the vessel to make the duck soup.
Flavour
The city describes the dish as keeping the duck's original flavour, with a clear, fresh aroma and a mellow, rich soup. Autumn and winter are singled out as the seasons to eat it.
Where it comes from
Local tradition dates the dish to the end of the Ming dynasty, a time of repeated disasters. One autumn a restaurant owner, Pan Peng (潘鹏), helped Zhao Yinong (赵义农), a duck farmer of Xinhe (新河) in Yanling, sell his ducks, and his steamed duck made the restaurant famous. Because the pieces looked like dumplings, the dish was called yajiao, and the name has lasted to the present.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.