Advice on duck legs....

S

sallybr

Well-known member
I want to make duck confit on Dec 27th, my beloved's husband. We will have a couple from Brazil with us, so four legs would be appropriate for the occasion

I really like d'Artagnan, and they sell a package with four duck legs, but here's the deal - their holiday delivery times makes it only availalble for delivery on Dec 22nd

they recommend that you use them within 3 days - but the preparation for confit involves first a salting step - I am thinking that I could do that on the evening of the 24th, for instance. Then wash the salt away and keep the legs in the fridge until time to confit, which I'll do sous vide for 8 to 10 hours.

what do you think? Should I got for it or forget it and cook something else????

I know I could buy duck legs frozen but would prefer not to.

 
I was less concerned with bacterial contamination...

... than with a bad outcome in texture - due to separating the salting from the actual confit-ying... have I just created a word? WOW.

I know that I will have to salt in advance as a way to preserve it, I am just hoping that the few days in between won't be a problem.

 
You could probably go ahead and confit it, don't you think? That is what confit is--

preserved under the fat. I hadn't thought about it from your point of view, but I do think the texture will be different if salted and stored before confiting. PLUS it will be under vacuum--more preserving.
I don't really think of the salting as the preserving--more of seasoning?

 
I think you are right, I should confit and save it in the bag....

... on the serving day I can simply place it back in the water bath to reach temperature and then finish it off for serving

I could do everything on the 24th, save it in the fridge and call it a day

yeah, baby.... we've got a plan

 
Sally, I look forward to hearing about this. I have only made the 5 hour duck, and LOVE it. Let

me know how the legs work for you.....

Best,
Barb

 
Oh, I've made duck confit before twice....(more)

in my pre-blogging days, but not through sous-vide

I used the crockpot to cook the legs in fat (and used mostly olive oil to cover, not full duck fat)

both times the results were spectacular and pretty close to the best confits I enjoyed back in Paris. It is a bit involved and well.. messy with the fat, but worth it

I am looking forward to using sous-vide this time...

 
Yes, it is special. Sous vide will be interesting. You won't do it in fat, will you. The "trick"

about confit is to get the duck fat for us living in the US. Skin that duck and render the skin and TRY not to eat the resulting cracklings!!

 
Yes it gets done in fat... (more)

but very little - say 1 Tablespoon duck fat per piece of duck - once you close the bag and submerge it in the water bath, the fat will coat the meat and act similarly to the real confit process

I have duck fat (store-bought) and won't need to render it myself - I did that once and disliked the process intensely - I could not get the smell off my nose and mind for days!

nope, not into it. Plus I don't really care for eating the cracklings, so I gladly get the duck fat prepared by someone else smileys/wink.gif

 
Sorry I wasn't around to chime in, but you reached the right conclusion. Confit ahead of time

It will keep weeks, if not months, in the refrigerator (though I usually freeze it if it is going to be a long time. It suffers much less if frozen confit-ed than it would frozen raw).

And Traca is right, it improves in flavor and texture over time.

 
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