Duck Confit
Duck legs cured in salt overnight, then cooked submerged in their own fat until the meat gives at a touch. A preservation method from before refrigeration that survives because nothing else tastes like it.
Photograph credit: Manchons de canard confit et haricots blancs (mars 2022) by Benoît Prieur · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What to Put on the Table With Duck Confit
- Sautéed potatoes cooked in the same fat
- A Cahors or Madiran
- A sharp frisée salad
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Bretzel Alsacien, Brioche Buns, Carottes Vichy.
How to Make Duck Confit
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Rub the duck legs all over with the salt, garlic, thyme, bay and cracked pepper.
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Lay them skin side up in a dish, cover, and refrigerate 18 to 24 hours.
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Rinse the legs thoroughly under cold water to remove all the salt, then pat them completely dry. Wet duck will spit in the fat.
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Heat the oven to 135°C / 275°F.
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Pack the legs snugly in a deep casserole and pour over the melted duck fat until they are fully submerged.
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Cook uncovered for 2½ to 3 hours. The fat should barely tremble — if it bubbles, drop the oven 10 degrees.
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The confit is ready when a skewer meets no resistance and the meat has pulled back from the bone.
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Cool the legs in the fat. Refrigerate them within 2 hours, sealed under a layer of it.
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To serve, lift a leg out, scrape off excess fat, and crisp it skin side down in a dry frying pan over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes until the skin is lacquered and brittle.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Worth Knowing Before You Cook
Rinse the cure off properly. Leave it on and the finished confit is inedibly salty.
The fat must never boil. A bubbling confit fries the duck rather than poaching it.
Strain and keep the fat afterwards. It will do this job several more times and makes the best roast potatoes there are.
If You're Missing Something
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Leftovers
Submerged in its fat, confit keeps 4 days refrigerated; freeze the legs in their fat for longer keeping. Crisped, eat immediately.
Duck Confit: Your Questions Answered
How long does Duck Confit take to make?
30 minutes of preparation and 2 hours 30 minutes of cooking, plus 18 hours to 24 hours of chilling, so allow 21 hours to 27 hours from start to finish. The recipe serves 4.
What's in a Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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