La Cocotte Verte

Crispy Duck Confit on a bed of Green Lentils with Pan-Roasted Vegetables

Confit de canard (‘preserved’ duck, aka duck confit) is a traditional French dish of duck that is salt-cured, then slowly simmered in duck fat until meltingly tender. Traditionally, the duck confit was stored in sterilized jars under a thick layer of duck fat to preserve it. While making duck confit is a multi-day procedure, excellent duck confit is available canned and in vacuum pouches. Although it’s not strictly necessary to preserve the duck in these products, the fat is still added as a traditional touch. Briefly sauteed in a skillet, then given a quick crisping under the broiler, duck confit makes a fast and delicious meal.

Ingredients

• Canned or vacuum packed duck confit, one thigh per person

Cooking the Confit

If using canned duck confit, remove top of the can and cover it with foil, then place the can in a pot of simmering water to melt the fat before removing the duck meat. Alternatively, if you have a warm spot in the kitchen, you can just put the can there until the duck fat has liquified.

If using vacuum-sealed confit, simply remove the required number of thighs from the pouch.

Chef’s truc:
Save the duck fat in a covered container in the refrigerator and use to cook with. Sliced potatoes sauteed in duck fat and served with the confit make up Confit Sarlandais, the traditional way of serving confit in Perigord.

Put the duck thighs, meat side down, in a large, heavy skillet, trying not to take along too much of the fat. Sautee them, covered, over medium heat. Any excess fat will rapidly liquify, and can be removed from the pan.

After a while, when the meat side of the thighs has browned, turn each thigh over, and cook them another until the skin had turned crispy too.

If you like an extra-crispy skin on the confit, roast the thighs skin-side up under the broiler for 3 minutes or so until the skin is crisp. Serve immediately!

Tags: confit, duck

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 at 1:13 am and is filed under Entrees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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