Duck confit is regarded as a fine French dish. Most people would think it is pretty difficult to make at home. That’s what I thought before I decided to try this recipe which may not be considered the true “confit” process, but who cares as long as the cooking techniques and ingredients are simple, the finished dish looks like “classic” confit, and is amazingly tasty.
Most duck confit recipes and the traditional French process slowly cook the cured duck legs in a large amount of duck fat (2 pounds) at a carefully controlled temperature. I almost bought that much duck fat (almost $20 in the grocer) and tried the traditional way but was really hesitant about how I am going to deal with that duck fat after I am done with the dish. The big difference between this recipe and those popular ones is that in this recipe, the fat was generated from the duck legs during the baking process at low temperature. I’m not sure if the duck legs you could buy has this much fat as the ones I bought. This is pretty critical for this recipe. All the ducks sold in grocers are raised in farms. I assume all of them were overfed and had a lot of fat accumulated in their bodies. Using this recipe, you not only save a lot of money (duck fat is pretty expensive) but you end up collect a lot of fat after the slow baking. You can use it for future dishes.
After the cured duck legs were slowly cooked. You could either pan fry or bake them to turn the skin brown and crispy. I prefer the bake and broil way which gives finished duck legs a much more uniform color and crispier skin. You can also vary the baking temperature and time to drive more under-the-skin fat out and make the skin crispier.
So, now you can use this recipe to cook for a special event or like me cook at least once or twice every month.
Easy Duck Confit 法式油封鸭
Equipment
- 10-12" cast iron pot (or stainless steel pot)
- Oven
- baking pan
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds duck legs (two pieces)
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp salt
- 3-4 pieces bay leaves
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds
- 3-4 cloves garlic (optional)
- 1 small chunk ginger
Instructions
- If you don't have a mortar and pestle at home, use knife to crush black pepper and coriander seeds to smaller pieces
- Sprinkle salt onto duck leg and massage
- Sprinkle black pepper, bay leaves, and coriander seed onto the duck leg
- Put the seasoned duck legs to a zip bag or a bowl. Seal it and put in refrigerator to cure overnight
- Take the overnight cured duck legs from refrigerator and rinse with water to remove salt, and other seasonings.
- Put the garlic and ginger into the cast iron pot and put duck legs into the pot
- Turn on the oven and set temperature to 220F. Put the pot, with lid, into the oven
- After 2 hours, take the pot out and flip the duck legs, put the pot back into the oven
- Keep the pot in the oven for another 2 hours
- If you decide to finish the dish right after the above step, raise your oven temperature to 400F. Put the duck legs on a baking pan.
- Bake the duck legs for 25-30 mins. Switch to broil. Watch closely when using broil. Take the pan out of the oven when the duck legs turn dark brown.
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