duck confit

Duck confit, what is there to say about this delicious dish that hasn't been said before?  Well I have something to say.  But as always a story of my travels in accompaning it.

I used to work in a French restuarant in Toronto, and of course there was duck confit on the menu.  The duck is always marinated or cured so to speak with salt, pepper, bay leaf, and herbs.  Sometimes chefs will add other spices like juniper berries or other exotic herbs, berries or spices.  The duck always tasted amazing, slight sweetness from the fruit, slight tang from the spices and of course the subtleness of the herbs.  But always the tangyness (if you can call it that) of the heavy salt cure that never really got totally washed off.

However I was travelling inthe Perigord region of France to learn about the gavage of Foie Gras, learn about how the ducks and geese are raised for foie gras, and as usual I would go to the restuarants that were off the beaten path for my meals.  (I found they served the best food and of course on a budget).  So there I am ordering duck confit, and I sit there eat my appetizer really looking forward to my duck confit.  And of course in the style of the French its served on a simple plate with potatoes and vegetables plated in a simple fashion highlighting the star of the show, the ducks leg.  Now that may not seem written in a very romantic way, but trust me, close your eyes for a second and picture your favourite dish in the whole wide world.  Your mouth is watering as you can feel yourself about to put your fork and knife and about to dig in.  Now imagine you are in teh country of your favourtie dishes origin.  Even better. why?  Imagine the scenery the ambiance around you, everything about this scenerio now makes a person giddy with joy, almost liek you are a kid opening your gifts on christmas morning.  There really is something about it thats special that can't really be put into words.

Anyways back the meal.  I close my eyes in order to shut out everything around me, heightening my scense of taste and smell.  I cut a piece of Duck off and I take a bite, and it melts in my mouth.  I feel like I have gone to heaven, yet something is bothering me about this piece of duck.  IT has a very strogn flavour that I am not familiar with.  Something that oddly enough I am extreamly excited about.  Now my interest is peaked.  When the Maitre D' comes over to ask me how my meal is, I explain I love it, but I want to know what teh chef put in during the curing procdess to make the duck taste so gamey in a way.  She comes back from teh kitchen and says the chef uses just salt and pepper.  I said ok.  After my meal, I asked if I can speak with the chef.  I introduced myself, why I was in this small town, and why I was in France to begin with.  I explained to her what I was tasting and that I couldn't put my finger on it, and asked her for her recipe.  She once again said, just salt and pepper.  Then she went on to tell me this.  Duck and geese have distinct flavours, and so does almost everything else in the world we eat.  The problem with most chefs is, that we make thigns so complex, to make fancy names for things, when really cooking things so simply with in itself highlight the star of the show.

It really made me think for a second about how right this chef was.  The duck always was heavy salted had parsley, thyme, rosemary, bay leafs, juniper berries, so many flavours that yes they do work together on many levels, and of course they do compliment the duck, but I say enough is enough.  And of course the beauty of cooking the duck Sous Vide is, you use less ingredients in the bag, since its litereally under pressure vaccum sealed.

So here I came up with my own cure as well as direction for cooking duck leg sous vide. 

4 duck legs
6 teaspoons of kosher salt
1 teaspoon of Sugar
2 teaspoons peppercorns
4 bay leaves
1/4 bunch of Fresh Parsley
5 stocks fresh Thyme
4 juniper berries
2 tablespoons duck fat

Marinate over night 12- 24 hours.  Wash off all the curing salt.  In a bag put your duck legs the parsley, thyme  and 2 tablespoons of duck fat.  Seal and cook in your water bath or Sous vide supreme machine at 180 degrees F for 14 hours.

You will get a tender duck confit like you have never had before.  Now I know that after that whole speach about just using salt and pepper, I still added herbs and juniper berries, but I put so few in for the sole purpase to enhance the duck flavour with out even coming close to over powering it.  You will still taste the duck and its gamey flavours I guarentee.
Yehuda