Confit de canard
A traditional Gascon method of preserving meat, built on two barriers: salt draws the water out of the meat, fat shuts out the air. In the past, duck sealed under fat in a stoneware crock lasted the winter in a cool larder. The home version does not pretend to be a larder — confit is kept in the fridge — but the technique is the same, and it is what produces meat that falls apart under a fork with skin that crackles.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Curing 1440 min
- Cooking in fat 180 min
- Potting 30 min
- Cooling 120 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneCure the legs in salt and herbs
Mix the salt with the chopped thyme, bay, garlic, pepper and juniper and coat the legs on every side. Lay them skin up in a dish and refrigerate 24 hours.
Ingredients: 6 pcs duck legs · 80 g coarse salt · 6 pcs thyme · 4 pcs bay leaves · 6 cloves garlic · 1 tsp peppercorns · 6 pcs juniper berries
Salt on every side, a day in the fridge.Rinse and dry very thoroughly
Rinse the salt off and pat the legs bone dry. Rinsing is essential or the meat is inedibly salty; drying too — water in hot fat spits and lowers its temperature.
Ingredients: 6 pcs duck legs · 80 g coarse salt · 6 pcs thyme · 4 pcs bay leaves · 6 cloves garlic · 1 tsp peppercorns · 6 pcs juniper berries
Submerge the legs in melted fat
Heat the oven to 130°C. Melt the fat in an ovenproof dish, add the legs snugly side by side, tuck in the unpeeled garlic and thyme sprigs and top up with fat so the legs are completely covered. Any exposed part dries out and turns tough — submersion is not presentation but a condition of the method.
Ingredients: 1200 g duck fat · 4 cloves garlic · 4 pcs thyme
Cook three hours at 130°C
Put the dish in the oven and cook 3 hours at 130°C. The fat should barely wink with the occasional bubble, never boil. Boiling fat would fry the meat, and the point is slow collagen breakdown at low temperature.
Ingredients: 1200 g duck fat · 4 cloves garlic · 4 pcs thyme
Occasional bubbles, never a boil.Test at the bone
The duck is ready when the meat pulls from the bone under light pressure. If it resists, give it another 30 minutes. Undercooked confit is rubbery, and no amount of later crisping will fix it.
Ingredients: 6 pcs duck legs · 80 g coarse salt · 6 pcs thyme · 4 pcs bay leaves · 6 cloves garlic · 1 tsp peppercorns · 6 pcs juniper berries
Pot the legs and cover with fat
Pack the legs into sterilised jars or a stoneware crock. Leave the fat to stand for 30 minutes so the meat juices settle at the bottom, then pour it off the juices, strain it through a fine sieve and pour it over the legs, covering the meat by 2 cm. Do not add the juices — they would settle at the bottom and shorten the confit's life; use them in a sauce or soup.
Ingredients: 1200 g duck fat · 4 cloves garlic · 4 pcs thyme
Strained fat, meat covered by 2 cm.Leave it two weeks
Leave to cool (about 2 hours) until the fat begins to set, then refrigerate. Confit is edible immediately but best after two weeks — the flavour has time to deepen. Completely covered in fat it keeps up to a month in the fridge and six months in the freezer; meat sealed away from air is a setting that favours botulism, so do not stretch that at home.
Ingredients: 1200 g duck fat · 4 cloves garlic · 4 pcs thyme
Crisp it before serving
Take out a leg, scrape off the excess fat and fry it skin down in a dry pan over medium heat for 8 minutes, until the skin crackles, then turn it for 2–3 minutes so the meat heats through to the bone. Add no fat — the leg carries enough to fry in its own.
Ingredients: 1200 g duck fat · 4 cloves garlic · 4 pcs thyme
Before you start
Where to get that much fat
Duck and goose fat are sold in jars at larger shops and butchers. You can also collect it from a roast duck and freeze it for months. At a pinch, mix it half and half with pork lard.
The fat is reusable
Once the confit is eaten, strain the fat and keep it in the fridge — it will do for another batch and, above all, for potatoes. Potatoes fried in duck fat are the classic accompaniment in south-west France and a reason in themselves to make confit.
What to use it for
Beyond serving it whole, confit goes into cassoulet, into garbure, into frisée salads, and shredded into rillettes. In this kitchen it is as much an ingredient as a dish — which is why you make six legs at once.