
Confit is a traditional French cooking method in which duck legs are salted and cooked in fat. This preserved them in the days before refrigeration.
Confit is done in three stages:
- Curing the duck legs in salt draws out the water in which any microorganisms live.
- Slow cooking in fat.
- Storing them fully covered in the cooking fat so air can’t get in.
The cured legs are cooked for a long time at a low temperature which results in extremely tender meat that falls easily off the bone.

For those of us that cant spare 9 hours to confit our own duck legs they are available on Amazon.
If you like duck and fancy a bit of a retro recipe then try the duck breast with orange sauce.

Confit duck legs
Ingredients
- 25 g Sea salt
- 2 sprigs Thyme
- 4 Duck legs 200g each
- 1 litre Duck fat melted (or vegetable oil)
Instructions
- Mix together the salt and thyme leaves and rub into the duck legs. Salt-curing the meat acts as a preservative. Cover and leave to cure for 6 hours in the fridge
- Rinse the cure from the duck and dry the legs thoroughly
- Place the legs in an oven proof dish deep enough to contain the meat and cover with the rendered fat
- Cover the dish with foil and place in the oven to cook for 3 hours or until the meat comes easily away from the bone
- Leave to cool in the fat
- Remove the legs from the fat and pat dry with kitchen roll before pan-frying to crisp up the skin or pulling the meat from the bone in delicious slivers to be used in fillings
Notes
Nutrition
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