Confit Recipes

One of the great things about confit is that it's so easy to create haute cuisine results straight from the can!  The duck legs in the can are pre-cooked and preserved, so all that's needed is heating through and they are ready to eat.  
The duck fat which packs the duck legs in the tin can be used to make great roast vegetables, too.  Make sure you retain that.  We can send you a roast potato recipe and other suggestions for duck and goose fat with your purchase.

Very Simple

Literally, what it says on the tin:
"Open Can.  Remove legs from duck fat and drain.  Place legs in a frying pan with two spoons of duck fat.  Brown on low heat 5 to 8 min on each side.  Serve warm."           (That's all!)

Tip:

Some people can find removing duck legs from the tin a bit unpleasant.  They are in congealed fat after all! (Best we make that clear up front.)  To make things easier we suggest leaving the tin in a warm place for half an hour or so before opening it.  The fat will have liquefied, making it easier to remove the legs with tongs.  Remember to keep that valuable duck fat, though (see above).

Confit de Canard Gascon

A French roast duck cuisse (duck thigh/leg) dish from Gascony, in the south west, where duck cuisine is in the regional gastronomic tradition.

Preparation time: 15min
Cooking time: 30min
Serve 4

Ingredients:
A 1350g tin of duck confit / 4 legs
250g of dried mushrooms, including cepes (porcini)
2 shallots
1 bunch of parsley
Pepper (most people find there is sufficient salt included with the confit already)
Method:
Using 2 tbsps of duck fat from the confit tin, gently fry the shallots finely chopped, add the mushrooms.
Let the mushrooms reduce and brown. 
Add a little pepper towards the end of the process.

Place the confit on a rack in a roasting tin, (to capture the fat).
Roast the duck at 180C for about 15min.  (Don't overcook - it is hard to go wrong with confit de canard, but over-cooking will do it.)

Place the duck on a dish and arrange the sautéed mushroom around the duck.  Sprinkle with the parsley. 

You can serve with roasted potatoes to complement.  
Use the duck fat collected in the oven tray to roast the potatoes.

Cassoulet de Canard

It will come as no surprise that "cassoulet" is similar to the English "casserole".  Another dish from the area of France nearest Spain (though perhaps a little further east in this case), where it warms many a winter night.  There are many possible variations to this recipe, so be brave and experiment a little with extra or different ingredients!

Ingredients:
400-500g white haricot or similar beans, (if dry: soaked overnight)
Confit de canard (1 portion per person)
Pork or other rich sausages  (1 per person)
400g tin of tomatoes
Tomato puree
4 cloves of garlic
Method:
Atop your hob, and using a large ceramic oven dish*, and some of the duck fat from the tin of confit de canard, fry the sausage (in approx 1 inch lengths), garlic, haricot beans, tomatoes, and tomato puree.

*If you don't have a large ceramic oven dish (eg Le Creuset), use a frying pan at this stage and another oven dish, below.

When browned, add water and gently simmer for about an hour.

Next, put in the duck legs, and place the uncovered dish in the oven, for about 30 minutes.

Serve with fresh crusty bread, and some rich red wine from Bordeaux.

Venetian Confit with Pasta

There is significant cross-fertilisation between Northern Italian and Southern French cuisine.  (More than anyone from those nations would care to admit.) It's no surprise that there is a duck confit equivalent in Venice, enjoyed here with that most typical of ingredients... pasta!

This is a great recipe to stretch a 2-leg tin to make a meal for 4 people.  

Ingredients to serve 4:
  • 500g good pasta (ideally tagliatelle)
  • 1 or 2 confit duck legs
  • 4 fine chopped garlic cloves
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1-2 tbsp duck fat (from tin)
  • Pepper
  • Lemon zest
  • 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
Tip:
If you want to add some extra bulk to this dish - though make it less Italian, where meals can have many many courses - fry some sliced onion and then mushrooms in the pan prior to adding the duck, and some peas and/or beans after.

Method:
Remove the duck legs from the tin and pick all the meat off them, tearing it into bite-sized pieces.  (Some people don't want to eat duck skin.  We love it, and recommend you use that in the same way as the meat in this recipe, too.)  Keep the duck fat from the tin.

Heat the butter and duck fat in a large frying pan.  Add the duck meat and skin and reduce the heat.

After a minute or two, add the garlic to the pan and mix well. Take care not to burn the garlic.  As soon as it starts to turn brown, remove the pan from the heat.

In the meantime, cook the pasta in boiling water, following the recommended times on the pack.

Drain the pasta well when it is al dente, then add it to the pan with the duck pieces.  Return the pan to the stove top on a medium heat.  Toss the pasta in the pan, making sure it is all coated well, with a little more duck fat if needed.  Add  black pepper and 1 tbsp of the lemon juice and toss again. Add another tbsp of lemon juice to taste.

Serve with a seasonal green salad and crusty bread.

DIY Confit de Canard Recipe

If you're feeling bold, and have some time on your hands, you may like to try this recipe for making your own duck confit with fresh or chilled duck legs:

Ingredients:
  • 1 fresh or chilled duck leg per person
  • 100ml-150ml+ duck fat per leg (depends on the size of your storage container)

Salt mix - blend together:
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp thyme
  • 4 tbsp parsley
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp pepper
Method:

Duck confit preserves the meat with salt and fat... so to start you need to salt each duck leg with about at least a tablespoon of salt mix each and place in baking pan, skin side down, and cover.
Refrigerate overnight.

The following day - Preheat your oven to 90C, with an oven rack ready in the centre.  Rinse duck legs to remove the salt and pat dry.
Melt duck fat on your stove in an oven proof dish with lid (eg Le Crueset) and place the legs, no more than two deep, in the dish.  Brown on low heat for 10 minutes or so.

Transfer to oven and very gently cook for 8-10 hours.  (8hrs for 2 legs, up to 10hrs for 6 legs).  Check 'doneness' by gently separating the flesh from the bone.  Slow cooking is the key to the exquisite tenderness of duck confit.

Remove from the oven and let the duck legs cool down to room temperature in the oven dish.  (Approx  1 - 1.5 hours.)
Take the legs out of the fat and place in as small a storage container as you can fit them in.
Pour the duck fat over legs to completely cover them (hence the need for as a container that makes it as tight as you can get it, without disjointing the legs!).  

Seal the container and refrigerate for up to two weeks.

When needed, cook as for tinned confit (above).