Duck Confit - Easy Fat Dinner

So if your from the states you might not know too much about Duck Confit. No thats not right, how bout if you grew up in an Atlanta suburb you might never have come across it.

So what is duck confit?
Essentially a fat based meat preserve.
Duck confit consists of cooking duck down in its own fat and then letting it mature while submerged by fat which acts as a preservative. Or thats how I seem to say it.

Duck Bearnaise


serves a bunch of people along with some salad or something.

1 tub of duck/goose/pheasant confit (should have 3/4 of a bird in it)
3 shallots - diced
3-4 nice potatoes (maris piper is my favorite type) washed, chopped, submerged in water
1 large parsnip - chopped like the potatoes
a bunch of oyster mushrooms - chopped (OPTIONAL)
1 glass of dry white wine
1 clove garlic - diced
4 tbsp chopped parsley

So what you will be doing is essentially seperating the pieces of duck from the fat they come in, using the fat to cook down the veggies, and then adding the duck pieces to the veggies.

First - seperate the pieces of duck from the fat that they came in. Wipe the duck pieces clean with some paper towel and then break them up into little pieces of meat and bone (you will find the duck tender enough for this and if its not tender enough for breaking up then its probably not a good confit).

Second - place 2 tablespoons of confit fat into a large pan over a medium heat. When fat liquifies add in shallots, potatoes and parsnip. (If using mushrooms use a bit more fat and add them in 2 minutes after the potatoes/parsnip). Cook until potatoes and parsnip brown up a bit and shallot is translucent. Now stir in the garlic and cook until it is soft (about a minute). Then add the glass of wine and lower heat just a bit. Continue to cook until steam coming from pan is no longer alchohol-ish (until the alcohol evaporates).

Third - Add duck pieces/shreds into pan and stir. All you want to do is heat the duck so turn the heat down if you hear lots of sizzling. Let duck heat up and then add in parsley. Stir and serve with some salad and grainy bread. I prefer an arugula and lambleaf salad with a spicy grain mustard dressing - it really cuts the hearty duck dish.

Good with either white or red wine. French preferably.

By the way this post was accidentally put up earlier as a rough draft. sorry