Saturday, March 19

Confit

Confit. If you see this on a menu, order it. Don't question it and don't be silly. Order. Confit means love.
Actually it means cooked in fat, preferably it's own, but that's not always possible. Food is usually cured with salt and or sugar and aromats before being submerged in fat and cooked very slowly until tender. What more do you want?
Because confit foods are covered with fat, they are not in contact with oxygen and are therefore preserved. This style of cooking was a necessity before refrigeration. Originally referring to fruits cooked and preserved in sugar, the French perfected the art with meats like duck and goose.
Making Duck confit is easy and amazingly delicious. You would be really cool if you actually tried this.

Liberally cover the skin of your duck legs (thighs attached) with cure. 2 part rock sea salt : 1 part sugar + aromats, (traditionally bay leaves, garlic, thyme, black pepper, juniper berries, I like a whack of herbs too and pulsing in the food processor before adding the salt and sugar) leave in fridge loosely covered 24- 48 hours. Wipe off cure and submerge duck in fat. ( If you can't find duck fat you can use oil, but you should really go find duck fat). Put in oven below 300F. Duck is done when thigh bone can be pulled out with ease, 3-5 hours ish. Cool. Back in the day they'd sort of just keep this downstairs for months but I suggest the fridge. When you want to eat it, which is pretty much always, when you're actually ready to eat, make a pan hot. Gently (always gently (hands of a lesbian, tender yet firm)) remove duck from fat, and place duck skin down in hot pan. Don't move it. (Hot means when the duck hit the pan it goes spttzzzzzzz instantly but not so hot your pan is about to melt and everything goes black). Put pan in 350F oven for 10 min or so. You want the skin all super crispy. That's when it's done.. Put a little salad on a plate, put the duck down, drizzle with a gastrique. Wow.

No comments:

Post a Comment