Easy Duck Confit 法式油封鸭
This recipe is a tweak to the traditional French recipe/process. It only involves simple cook techniques but does need patience. The resulting dish is amazingly beautiful
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.
Video
Notes
-Most recipes use a large amount (around 2 pounds) duck fat and maintain the duck fat at 220F and slow cook the duck legs on oven top.
-After the duck legs are cooked in fat, you can either pan fry or bake in the oven to brown the skin. I found baking make the skin color more uniform and drives out the fat underneath the skin more easily.
-Both garlic and ginger are optional.
-After the slow cooking process, excess amount of duck fat is driven out the duck legs. Under the fat layer is juice. You can scoop the fat and save it in a container for future cooking.