Confit is a one of my all-time-favorite cooking techniques. Confit, translated from French, literally means “preserved.” It was a technique developed by French farmers before refrigeration was available to preserve meat for the leaner months. The fact that refrigerators are a common household item and yet the confit process is still alive and well is a strong testament to just how delicious this technique is.
Although this technique specifically talks about confit duck legs, this exact same method can be used for any number of proteins, including beef, chicken, pork and fish. Although it is preferred that the confit is cooked and stored in the fat from the same type of animal frm which your protein originally came, Olive Oil or Canola Oil can be substituted in a pinch.
The Confit Process
Start by laying your duck leg and thigh portions on a sheet pan covered with a layer of kosher salt at least 1/8 of an inch thick. I like to mix my kosher salt with 0.2% sodium nitrite by weight, which gives the finished confit a beautiful rosy color, cured "hammy" flavor and can be left to "ripen" after cooking for up to 6 months. To make this calculation, multiply the total weight of your kosher salt by .002 (ex. 1,000g salt X 0.002 = 2g nitrite or 0.2% by weight).
Season the top of the legs with ground bay leaves and ground pepper (traditionally white). Cloves are also a classic spice used in the confit process, and I’ll sometimes lay a sprig of thyme or rosemary over each leg. Completely cover the top of the legs with more kosher salt (or curing mix if using), until the legs are no longer visible.
Place another sheet pan on top and weigh it down with some heavy cans or bricks. Place in your refrigerator for about 24 hours. Leaving them in the fridge too long will cause them to become overly salty and leaving them in for too short a period of time will not allow them to soak up enough salt for them to cure out properly.
After the legs have been allowed to cure for 24 hours, remove from salt and rinse vigorously under cold, running water. If not rinsed thoroughly, your finished confit will taste too salty. Lay out on a wire rack and allow to dry out in your refrigerator for at least 4 hours and no longer than 24 hours. This is an optional step but I find it provides a better end product by removing any excess moisture before placing the legs in the duck fat.
Once the rinsed legs have had a chance to dry in your refrigerator, place in an oven-safe braising pan or Dutch oven. Cover with warm duck fat and bring to a low simmer on your stove top. After the duck legs begin to simmer, place in a 200-degree-Fahrenheit oven for 6-8 hours or until the fat is clear and the legs have settled to the bottom of the pan. Once legs are done cooking, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the fat. When cool enough to handle, transfer the legs to a storage container and cover with fat.
Place in your fridge for at least 1 week and up to 2 months to allow confit to “ripen.” Although you can eat the duck confit as soon as you remove it from the oven, allowing it to “ripen” for at least a few days will give it that true confit flavor.
Serving Suggestions
When ready to serve your confit, remove from the fridge and let it sit out on your countertop for about an hour or until the fat softens. Fish out your duck legs and place them in a 400°F/205°C oven for 10-15 minutes or until crispy golden brown and heated all the way through.
A classic accompaniment is duck-fat-roasted potatoes. Just think breakfast-style “country potatoes” but instead they're sautéed in duck fat. I also like to serve my confit with a salad of bitter greens such as arugula and frisée. The slightly bitter bite of these greens helps to cut the fat on your palate and offers an excellent contrast to the rich confit.
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I purchase the duck fat from
I purchase the duck fat from my meat purveyor; you can usually pick up duck fat at a gourmet food store or from a good butcher. Although I prefer duck fat, or more specifically I prefer to use the same fat as the animal I'm confiting, in a pinch, I would recommend using a 50/50 mix of canola and clarified butter. Straight canola oil will also work but it solidifies at a lower temperature than clarified butter, which will help to form your fat cap for curing.
Duck fat will work fine for
Duck fat will work fine for pheasant. The reason why I dry salt is because it helps to pull the moisture out of the duck while infusing it with salt. The removal of the moisture helps to cure the confit. Since you will be refrigerating your confit, the curing process is there more for flavor then for shelf stability.
And yes, the cooking time is to break down the collagen of the duck legs. A circulator is a great way to actually cook confit; just vacuum seal a little bit of fat with the protein that you want to confit and drop in a 60°C/140°F bath for 24 hours.
If you pack the legs tightly,
If you pack the legs tightly, about 1-2 pounds of duck fat should do the trick. If you still don't have enough to fully cover, just supplement with a little bit of canola oil.
If your room temperature is
If your room temperature is close to a standard cellar temperature (50-60F), then yes, you could leave it out. And because the confit is covered in salt, it would probably also be fine a normal room temp (70F) as well.
But I would recommend letting it stay in your fridge during the salting period just to play it safe.
@ Favero, With the curing
@ Favero,
With the curing salt and fat cap, at least 6 months. Be sure to cover the top with either a lid of plastic wrap so the fat cap doesn't absorb the other aromas in your fridge.
Let me know how it turns out.
Hi Craig, 225F/107C for
Hi Craig,
- 225F/107C for about 2-3 hours, or until the wings are tender.
- No, but it will make them last longer. So if doing this in big batches, I would only remove enough wings from the fat for that day.
- Wings will be ready to use immediately.
If storing the wings long term (more than a week) under the fat, make sure you salt the wings first, and use some nitrite as well. This will keep the wings from botulism.
However, you can use just the confit cooking technique (sans salting and storing under fat), and when the wings are done, drain off the fat, reserving it for the next batch. Spread the wings out onto a sheet tray lined with parchment in an even layer, allow to cool, and then wrap with plastic. They should easily keep for 3-5 days, meaning if you're doing these in bulk at a 7 day a week operation, you'll only need to do 2 batches a week, or as needed.
@ Craig, Yes on both
@ Craig,
Yes on both questions.
@ Robsous,
It's good science and I use this approach any time I braise. Since duck confit is basically braising in fat, the same principals apply. Generally speaking, when cooking a protein that has tough connective tissue that needs to be broken down, the lower the temperature and slower the cooking process, the better results you will have.
This is why sous vide is also a good option for tough cuts of meat. The unraveling of collagen isn't just dependent on temperature, it also relies on time. So a short rib can be cooked at 60C, giving you a pink, medium doneness, but it takes 48 hours at that temperature for the collagen to completely break down.
If I'm not in a rush, I would
If I'm not in a rush, I would recommend starting the confit in a cold oven, turning the oven to 200F/93C, and cooking for about 6-8 hours (start checking after six hours; once the skin at the bottom of the leg starts to cleanly pull away from the bone, its done).
To be honest, I never probe
To be honest, I never probe my confit, but if I had to guess, I would say maybe 155F/68C as a good starting point. But then again, if you're using a combi, you could go even lower temp, something like 85C for 12 hours, with an internal temp of 68C.
You could go even lower, but I actually prefer the more traditional texture of confit, versus the more meaty, low temp results you get from combis or sous vide. But it's definitely something to play with.
The cold start is for the gradual heating, like McGee recommends. Remember that the same enzymes responsible for the tenderness and flavor of dry aged meats will hyper activate between 120-130F/48.5-54.5C, and stay active for as long as 3-4 hours.
So the cold start in the oven brings the temperature up more gradually, and allows the meat to spend a longer period of time in that hyper-activation zone.
But with something fancy like a combi oven, you could bring the confit up to 125F/48.8C internal temperature, and hold it there for 3 hours. Then crank the combi up to 200F/93C, and start checking the confit when you probe thermometer starts hitting 63C. Eventually you'll find that sweet spot between 63C and 70C that will give you the perfect results.
Let me know how your next batch turns out. I'll be interested to hear your results.
As the wings cool, the muscle
As the wings cool, the muscle fibers start to relax, allowing them to absorb back in their surface liquid and some of the fat they were cooked in. Fat equals flavor, so I always prefer to cool my confit in the fat if I have the time.
You could do the wings at a
You could do the wings at a lower temperature with good results, but you'd be spending extra time that isn't totally necessary in my opinion. The collagen in chicken wings is more delicate and breaks down easier than that of duck legs. A shorter cook time at a bit of a higher temperature will still give you good results with chicken wings, where as with duck confit, you risk completely drying out the meat before the collagen has had a chance to break down.
Hey Rob, The blanching step
Hey Rob,
The blanching step is unnecessary since any surface bacteria will be killed in the long, slow cook.
If using the combi oven, you should hold the internal temperature of the duck confit at about 48.8C for three hours. Then turn up the combi and continue to cook the duck legs until done.
I would do this all in one cook; I wouldn't recommend partially cooking, then refrigerating, and cooking again, due to the possible growth of bacteria.
Yes. Also, how long are you
Yes.
Also, how long are you cooking the chicken wings?
Try doing the drums and
Try doing the drums and middles separate. Drums for 1-2 hours, middles for three plus.
You can also just abandon the confit all together and try this:
Alkaline Brine for 8-12 Hours:
- 100% Water
- 5% Salt
- 3% Sugar
- 0.5% Baking Soda
- After brining, rinse wings thoroughly and pat dry. For best results, spread in an even layer and let chill over night. This will help to dry out the skin, and even out the salt from the brine.
- Fry wings at 290F/140C for about 7-9 minutes, depending on size. This step should pretty much cook them all the way through.
- Drain, spread on a sheet tray (even layer), and allow to chill for at least a couple hours; for best results, go over night.
- Fry at 375F/190C until the skin is a crispy, golden brown (if using really large wings, you might want to fry at a slightly lower temperature).
- Place wings in a large mixing bowl, toss with sauce of choice, and serve. For traditional buffalo wings, use some Frank's Red Hot sauce and a couple pats of butter.
Personally, I'd cap it 4
Personally, I'd cap it 4 hours, but if you don't have an immersion circulator, you're going to have a tough time regardless.
Try the alkaline brine with the double fry; you'll be surprised how good they come out.
Container Use a plastic,
Container
Use a plastic, food safe cambro like this.
Water Ratio
Enough to cover the wings.
Joint Separation
Doesn't make a difference, but I prefer to separate the wings before brining.
Rinse
I just dump the wings out into a large colander and run them under cold water. A sink hose and colander will also work.
Food grade plastic, lid on.
Food grade plastic, lid on.
So first, the salting step
So first, the salting step before the cook will kill a large amount of the surface bacteria. But also, after you hold the confit at 48.8C for a few hours, aren't you turning up the temperature to finish?
At this point, you need to do
At this point, you need to do some side by side testing. That's the only way for you to figure out what brine time you prefer.
If the mids were rubbery, they were probably undercooked.
@ Robsous, As long as you as
@ Robsous,
As long as you as you're bringing the temperature up after the holding step you will be fine.
The accelerated aging adds both flavor and tenderness, but mostly tenderness.
You don't have to filter the oil right after cooking. You can just let the confit cool down in the same container, as long as the leg and thighs are submerged.
You can substitute oil for duck fat, but you'll be loosing some flavor. Remember, the duck fat can be re-used from batch to batch. The only draw back is, if you're heavily salting your confit (which you're not), the duck fat will get too salty after a couple of batches.
So yeah, if you're able to program your combi oven, you can get this cook done overnight.
@ Craig,
Cool. Keep me up to date on your progress.
Great to hear you got good
Great to hear you got good results.
Once you remove the jelly, you can use the fat for frying french fries and things of that nature, but you will get more life by filtering.
Read through this ongoing forum discussion I'm concurrently having. We're talking about chicken fat, but the principals remain the same for duck fat as well. Start at comment #12 and work your way down: http://stellaculinary.com/forum/general-cooking-and-recipe-trouble-shoot...