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“Confit” is a traditional French method for preserving meat. Tough cuts of meat are seasoned and slow-cooked in fat until tender. They are then cooled in the cooking fat which creates a sterile air-tight seal. Refrigerated, confits can last for weeks or months depending on the salt content. Duck confit is typically made from duck legs. You can technically make confit out of whole ducks or duck breasts but, in my opinion, duck breast gets kind of powdery in texture when cooked to the same degree that the legs want to be cooked to.
I consider duck confit a kitchen staple. It may sound extravagant and decadent but it is actually very practical and easy to make. Once the confit has been prepared, it is quick and simple to heat up by pan-frying or roasting in a hot oven, making it a perfect ingredient to have on hand for busy weeknights, date night dinner on-the-fly, holiday feasts, and dinner parties. It’s perfect for entertaining as many duck legs can be quickly heated in a hot oven at one time. When reheated, the duck skin becomes perfectly crispy and the meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender. Duck confit pairs well with baked white beans or “Cassoulet”, mushrooms, green beans, potatoes, risotto, hominy, winter squash, bread pudding or Thanksgiving stuffing, pasta dishes, breakfast hash, and poached eggs. Shredded and pan-fried it is like duck carnitas – perfect for street tacos. You cannot go wrong with duck confit!
When I owned the Restaurant and Charcuterie, duck confit was one of the items I always had in stock for retail and it was always on our menu in one form or another. I had one customer tell me that my duck confit was better than “Bouchon’s.” This was probably the best compliment I ever got as a chef.
Wild Game and Duck Confit
This is a great recipe for wild duck. It turns even the toughest game birds into a tender tasty delicacy. I have known many duck hunters over the years that breast out their birds and leave the rest of the animals in the field. This, to me, is a complete shame as there are few things in life as good as duck confit! If you know any duck hunters looking for ideas on how to use the whole bird, send them my way. Duck livers and heart are also delicious and I’ll have pâté recipes that use them coming soon.
This recipe and process for confit can also be made with goose, pheasant, and turkey. Just make sure your baking dish is deep enough to allow the legs to be fully submerged if you are using a larger bird.
About this recipe
This recipe makes 10 lbs of duck legs or about 20 individual portions. This may sound like a lot but considering how long the shelf life is and all the things you will want to make with duck confit, this is only 5 meals worth for a family of 4 and even fewer meals if you choose to share with friends for the holidays or turn some of this into duck rillettes, which you should definitely do (see recipe for details).
If you would like to make a smaller batch, simply scale this recipe down and use a smaller container for baking the legs. For example, for a five-pound batch, multiply all ingredients by 0.5.
This recipe takes time. Think of this as “slow food”. The time is mostly passive though so don’t be intimidated by the long prep time or cooking time listed in the recipe.
Confit Variations
You can use this recipe formulation to make confit of goose, pheasant, chicken, turkey, and other game birds as well as pork belly portions.
Whole Bird: I have made turkey confit with a whole turkey twice. The first time, I cooked all the pieces in the same container. The breast was dry and powdery, the legs were amazing. The second time, I separated the legs and the breast and cooked them to different temperatures. The breast to 155 F, the legs to 180 F. I used a leave-in probe thermometer for this. A tool every cook should have. Then when it was time to reheat it, I combined the breast and legs on a sheet pan and roasted it at 450 F until crispy on the outside. This worked perfectly and I would highly recommend separating the breast from legs when confiting whole birds.
Goose, Pheasant, Wild Turkey: These may need to add more time. Make sure containers are deep enough to allow goose legs to be completely covered with fat.
Chicken Leg Quarters: The leg and thigh quarter of chickens make an excellent confit and is much more affordable for everyday eating. These cook quite a bit faster and are less forgiving if overcooked.
Seasoning Variations: The seasoning in this recipe is very simple so the duck can be used in a variety of ways and different cuisines. If you would like a bolder seasoning mix, feel free to experiment. Add star anise, ginger, and orange zest for a festive holiday batch or try ginger, onion, and garlic for an Asian-inspired batch. Do not change the ratio of salt and curing salt to meat though.
Pork Belly or Pork Shoulder Confit Portions: Use lard or oil instead of duck fat. Bake at 200 F for 4-6 hours. Cut belly or pork should into individual size portions about 4-8 ounces.
Confit and Food Safety
This is an easy and accessible recipe for any home cook to make. There is however one important food safety consideration to keep in mind: botulism. Botulism is a toxin created by the spore-forming bacteria Clostridium Botulinum. This bacteria is prevalent in our environment, does not die during normal cooking temperatures, and when allowed to live in a non-acidic, anaerobic environment (canning jars, vacuum seal bags, meat packed in fat) at room temperature it produces this toxin.
To control for this and eliminate the risk, utensils and packaging materials should be sterile and the confit should pass through the temperature zone of 130 F-41 F within 4 hours if you choose not to use the curing salt, or 15 hours if you do use curing salt. What this means is that you will want to actively cool this product down. After about an hour (once it has naturally cooled from 180-130 F), you will want to put it in a cool place (like your garage in the winter or a screened-in porch with a fan blowing on it) for another 2 hours, and then package it into smaller faster-cooler containers like vacuum-sealed bags or jars to refrigerate. Placing a large vat of hot duck confit into a packed refrigerator with no airflow will not help it cool faster and it may raise the temperature of the rest of the food in the fridge so wait to refrigerate this until it has cooled to room temperature. If you do not have the cooling space required to cool this product down within 4 hours, either make a smaller batch, use the curing salt to give you a larger cooling window, or wait until the weather cools down and you have adequate space to make this project safely.
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Duck Confit
- Prep Time: 3 days
- Cook Time: 12 hours
- Total Time: 84 hours
- Yield: 20 servings 1x
- Category: Charcuterie
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: French
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
This is a delicious, incredibly versatile, and convenient kitchen staple to have on hand. Slow cooked duck with crispy skin and tender flavorful meat. A great recipe for wild game birds or store-bought duck. This is a long (mostly passive) project. Plan on cooking and packaging your duck confit over the weekend.
Ingredients
10 lbs duck legs
88 grams (10 Tablespoons Diamond Crystal Kosher) salt
12 grams Pink Curing Salt #1 (optional, add this amount more of reg. salt if omitting)
2 grams (1 teaspoon) whole cloves
2 grams (1 teaspoon) whole peppercorns
5 whole bay leaves
24 grams (2 Tablespoons) brown sugar
1 bunch fresh thyme sprigs (no need to pick off the leaves)
11 grams (1 3/4–2 level teaspoons) curing salt no. 1, aka pink curing salt (optional, see note below)
3 garlic cloves, crushed
Instructions
French the leg bone (optional)
Using a pairing knife, cut around the circumference of the leg bone right below the joint (about 1/2 inch from the end of the leg bone). Make sure you cut through all the tendons and ligaments. This step makes for a better presentation. It’s for appearances only and you can totally skip this if you want to.
Season the meat
In a small mixing bowl, combine all the seasonings.
Place the duck legs in a bin large enough to fit them all with some room for moving them around. Combine the legs with the seasonings and using your hands, rub the seasoning over all the duck legs. It will seem like there is hardly enough seasoning for the legs. That’s ok.
Refrigerate the legs for 3 days. Sometime on day 2, rearrange the legs so that the ones on the bottom of the bin are now on the top of the bin. There will be some brine that has accumulated in the bottom of the bin. Using your hands, rub this brine over the legs. Cover and refrigerate until the end of the third day.
Prepare to cook the duck legs.
Preheat your oven to 180 F.
Place the duck fat in a pot and heat it on the stove until the duck fat is completely liquid and hot but not hot enough to fry something, around 180-220 F if you want to temp it. If you don’t have a thermometer to temp the oil, you can use your senses; when the oil is hot it will have some motion to it, it will dance around in the pot, it will occasionally release large bubbles and you will start to smell it.
Rinse and dry the duck legs. I would do this by setting the tub with the duck legs in the sink and filling it with water and then swishing the duck legs around the water to remove the whole spices. Then remove the duck legs and lay them out on a sheet pan lined with paper towels. Dab paper towels on the top of the legs so that both sides are dry.
Pack the duck legs very tightly in a single layer into a 4-inch full size hotel pan or 2 standard home casserole dishes (total of 16 qt oven-safe dish). Or pack the legs into a double layer in a 6 inch deep half hotel pan (12 qt oven safe dish). Do not pack the legs in more than 2 layers. The tighter the legs are packed, the less duck fat you will need.
Pour the hot duck fat over the duck legs. The legs should be completely submerged.
Cook the duck
Place the duck in the oven uncovered. Cook for 10-12 hours or so until the duck is fork-tender but not falling apart. I do this overnight. In the morning or at the end of 12 hours if the duck is not fork-tender, turn the heat up to 225 F and continue to cook for another 1-2 more hours. It’s done around the time it fills your home with the smell of duck confit.
If you are paranoid about running the stove overnight, you can cook it at a higher temp for less time, 200 F for about 6-8 hours.
Cool and Store the Duck
Remove the duck from the oven and set on a rack to facilitate cooling. If possible, place it in a cool garage with a fan pointed at it until it has cooled to room temperature, the fat is still liquid but has turned cloudy or opaque.
Packaging Options
There are 4 ways to package the duck for long-term storage. At this point, all containers and utensils that you use for the following steps should be sterile.
1) Vat of Confit
Tip the duck-filled baking dish up a little by putting a coaster or hot pad under one side and using a turkey baster suck up the aspic from the lower end of the baking dish. Aspic is the non-fat callogen-rich liquid that rests at the bottom of a dish of confit. When cooled the natural gelatin in this flavorful broth will make this liquid a solid gel. Aspic is good stuff – worth saving for soups, sauces or rillettes. Place the entire dish of duck in the fridge and grab duck legs out as needed over a period of 3 months (if using the curing salt or 1 month if you omitted the curing salt). This method of packaging is really only good if you have lots of fridge space and plan on using all the ducks in a fairly short amount of time.
2)Vacuum Seal
Place 1-4 duck legs in vacuum seal bags, ladle in some fat (make sure not to get any of the aspic that is sitting on the bottom of the dish), and vacuum seal. With curing salt, a tightly sealed vacuum bag will last 4+ months in the fridge and 6+ months in the freezer (though with such a long shelf life there really is no need to freeze it). Without the curing salt, vacuum-sealed duck legs will last 1-2 month in the fridge and 6+ months in the freezer. Aspic left in the bag will decrease shelf life.
3) Ziplock bags
Place duck legs in freezer-proof ziplock bags, ladle in fat (make sure not to get any of the aspic that is sitting on the bottom of the dish), and use a straw to suck out as much air as possible when sealing the bags. With cure, these duck legs with last about 1 month in the fridge and 6 months in the freezer. Without cure, these duck legs will last about 2 weeks in the fridge and 6+ months in the freezer.
4) Make Rillettes
Using gloved hands and a mixing bowl, remove duck meat from the bones. There is a really sharp small bone that you need to watch out for and make sure you don’t mix in with the meat. Gradually ladle in a mixture of fat and aspic. Mix in with your hand. Continue ladling and mixing until the duck confit mixture is fully shredded and fairly wet. If you squeeze it your hand, some fat and aspic will drip out. Taste and season if desired. It should be very flavorful, on the verge of tasting too salty.
Pack this mixture into sterilized 1/2 cup or 1 cup jars. Refrigerate until chilled. Then, melt down some extra remaining duck fat and pour it over the top of the rillettes to completely cover. Place a lid on the jars and refrigerate for up to 1 month (with cure) or 2 weeks (without cure) or freeze for up to 6 months.
To serve rillettes, allow to come up to room temperature and serve with crusty bread, cornichons, and your favorite mustard.
Equipment
| 2 1/2″ Stainless Steel Hotel Pan |
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| ThermoPro Dual Probe Meat Thermometer |
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