Confit Easy

Yesterday we had the confit[ed] legs from the Christmas geese. Usually I wait months longer but I've been hoarding duck legs so immediately had a new jar's worth of waterfowl. Confit is really simple:

(1) salt
(2) poach in fat
(3) save it in fat
(4) wait several weeks or months
(5) eat and reuse the fat for next batch of confit

That's it. A lot of chefs use the word "confit" to mean only #2 -- gently cooking something in fat. That's a fine way to prepare some stuff but it's not really confit in the traditional sense.

Salt: rub goose legs or duck legs or pork belly or any piece of meat with a bunch of salt and let it sit in the fridge for a couple days. Just salt is all you really need, but you can add more to the salt rub if you want -- e.g. chopped bay leaves, garlic, fresh thyme, black pepper.

Poach in fat: cook gently in goose fat or duck fat or lard or probably any decent quality fat, at any temperature from 100-150C. I generally do 120C but this is an old and unfussy way to preserve food so precision is not paramount.

Save it in fat: jar it in the fat and it will keep quite a while in the cellar, or even longer in the fridge.