Charcuterie_ The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Michael Ruhlman [120]
As the duck poaches in the fat, the seasonings flavor the fat, transforming it into an extraordinary cooking medium, whether for more confit, for sautéing, or even for seasoning. The fat can be used in a warm vinaigrette, drizzled over bitter greens, or added as an enriching touch to sauces.
The process also results in an amazing essence, “confit jelly.” When you confit meat and bones, they release juices and flavor and collagen—just as they do when simmered in water to make stock. The juices fall to the bottom of the pot they’ve been cooked in, under the fat. But rather than being diluted, as in stock, they become concentrated. When this cold rubbery substance is removed, you have powerfully flavored, salty, gelatinized broth. Simply melted and served with the duck, it’s delicious. It can be added to a vinaigrette to flavor it, or used to fortify a sauce.
This chapter offers both traditional confit recipes along with more unusual confits, such as those for pork loin, shoulder, and belly. Recipes for rillettes are included as well, as they are a charcuterie technique and a cousin of confit. In classic rillettes, pork, duck, goose, or rabbit is poached in stock or fat till it is falling-apart tender, then pounded with seasonings and fat into a coarse paste and spread on crusty bread.
Chefs often use the term confit with vegetables, to describe onions, tomatoes, or fennel cooked in oil until meltingly tender. The technique is not really a confit, but it shares confit’s gentle cooking and tender unctuousness. Confitures, of course, are the confits of the fruit world, in which sugar replaces the fat to make jams.
Basic Duck Confit
Variations on duck confit are infinite, depending on the seasonings you add to your dry cure. Some people prefer the pure flavor of the duck with a little thyme, others enjoy the traditional sweet spicing of clove. The only two essentials of traditional confit are a salt dry cure—we use 1⁄3 ounce /8 grams of salt for every 1 pound/450 grams of meat—and gentle poaching in fat. Other than that, it’s a matter of taste.
Brian and I like a little bit of cloves, black pepper, savory garlic, and some bay leaf, but even salt alone is fine. We’ve included variations on the seasoning, as well as a recipe for goose confit.
You have many options when it comes to the duck, and all work well: Pekin (Long Island), Muscovy, or moulard. Excellent duck legs are available online for reasonable prices (see Sources, page 303). The easiest way to make duck confit at home is to buy duck legs via mail-order (see Sources), along with a couple pounds of duck fat. This way you’re assured of excellent duck and enough cooking fat to cover the duck. Well wrapped and stored in the freezer, the fat will keep for six months or longer, and it can be reused for confit many times (eventually it will become too salty).
If you are an ambitious cook and like to work from scratch, a less expensive method is to buy a whole duck at the supermarket and remove the leg-thigh pieces from the carcass, trimming all the fat and saving it for rendering. We’ve never had a problem with the amount of fat rendered from a duck, but if you find that your fat won’t cover the duck add shortening or, better, lard to cover. You can confit the breasts as well. This method also leaves you with a carcass to roast for making stock. So buying a whole duck gives you quite a bit more for the money, if you like to work in the kitchen.
COOKING
To cook confit, preheat your oven to its lowest setting, ideally 180 degrees F./82 degrees C. and no higher than 200 degrees F./93 degrees C. Confit can become tough and stringy if the oven is too hot. Rinse the salt and seasonings from the cured duck and thoroughly dry with paper towels. Submerge the legs in rendered fat in a pot just big enough to hold the legs snugly, bring the fat just to a simmer on the stovetop, and then place the pot in the low oven for 6 to 10