Go to the Recipe: Sous Vide Duck Leg Confit
French here. Duck legs confit are expensive and not easy to find and I'm exited to see this recipe. How should I proceed if I want to make a cassoulet with them? Is there a way to confit the duck as well as cooking the other meats (garlic sausages and pork) and the beans all at the same time? If no, any suggestion on how to proceed?
A confit using less oil, like it will have to try it out.
I have been curious about this for a long time now. How (scientifically) does being surrounded in a fat rather than a liquid affect the texture of the meat? Or does confit have more to do with the way that fats capture and retain flavor than with the texture obtained? I've tried to find some science on it without much luck - my go to Harold McGee doesn't explain whether there is a difference beyond the traditional preservation of the meat. This is something I've wondered about especially because sometimes I have a difficult time keeping my duck legs in the fat part when I confit them sous vide. They often sink out of the fat to the bottom of the bag where the liquid has collected, and when I come back and shift them around again I worry that I have compromised their ideal perfection...
If I remember correctly from an old Cooking Issues episode, Nathan Mihrvold ran a double blind experiment and found that there tasters could not tell the difference between a traditional confit and a sous vide cooked duck brushed with fat afterwards - so no difference in either taste or texture.
What do you think the time/temperature for just duck wings would be?
Will the long cooking process effectively render the fat, and can I salvage it from the freezer bags I generally use with Joule?
Yes, you'll need to separate the fat from the juice though.
This was delicious; I used the suggested herbs. Sorry for the lame presentation in the picture, but I go for taste not Instagram readiness - at least for now. My sous-vide didn't catch fire and the Saran Wrap didn't melt after being on for 20 hours straight @70F. Had to remember late last night to cut a circle around the drumstick and actually turn the machine on. Pro tip, do the frenching before you drink all your wine. FYI, I separated the fat and ran it through a cheese strainer, and hope to have some duck fat for future cooking. Also, broiling times suggested were long for me, so watch it closely. Some dark spots likely needed to get overall browning, as you can see from the pic.
This was a Hanukkah crowd-pleaser! Amazing with latkes and a salad for a casual family celebration of freedom-fighting oil-poor Maccabees. Also yields excellent byproducts, see below.
Six full legs; I separated off the thighs and ran the twelve pieces 158°F eighteen hours (not because 18 is auspicious, which it is, but because I put them in at midnight and pulled them at 6pm the next day.)
Didn't have an orange, but it turns out that clementine peel is suitable, if not ideal. A few juniper berries added for extra frenchiness.
As I say, very happy customers, including skeptical 12-year old nephew.
THE BIG BONUS: legs come out of their hot bath swimming in a magnificent mixture of duck fat and jus.
Everyone knows the decadence of duck fat (I fried onions in the duck fat for chopped liver last night, and still have 200 ml left).
But the jus (or as my kids would say, "blood"), people, the jus! What you have at the end of the confit recipe is a gellid bomb of fabulousness straining at the confines of a used plastic bag, simply dying to go out in the world and turn some lowly ingredient into a transcendent flavor experience.
Me, I boiled rancho gordo cassoulet beans in the (strained) jus with a few aromatics. Un-freaking-earthly. I am having them for dinner tonight.
I am also making two other sous vide items, some duck breast and carrots. How long can this sit before putting into the oven?
Can these temps apply to goose legs (doing them for Christmas). A goose has more fat. Should i cook it longer? Thanksyou
Served with raw fennel and Brussels sprouts salad. This sous-vide technique yielded more tender meat, but less rendered fat and less crispy skin than the 4-hr oven plus roasting technique I used to use. I will try to perfect the finishing for crispier skin, and I was surprised to enjoy the extra fat vs the super lean meat from the oven. This requires s lot of ore-planning (16-hrs) and I kept forgetting for several days to set up before bed, lol, but once done, nearly zero fuss and as another commented easy to scale this up for large numbers vs oven technique is hard to scale.
I have the same question as Ryan Benton, can this be done a head of time (chilled, reheated at just below the cook temp and then broiled) if so how long can it sit (in the fridge) before finishing? Thanks!
Has anyone tried to make gesiers - confit chicken or duck gizzards? I love them when in France, and would like to try to make them using the sous vide method. Any help out there?
Quick question if I may. 16 hours is awkward..supper at 6pm means starting the cooking at 2am. Would it hurt to cook for 20-21 hours? Is duck leg one of those things that shouldn't cook that long? I am thinking for instance beef tenderloin turns funky if cooked 6-8 hours. Thanks for the help.
Cheers,
Peter
You start cooking whenever you want and after 16 hours you leave it in the fridge and broil/sear it after serving
Hey Sue! That sounds amazing. Just curious - what was the occasion?
Can you use smaller duck legs?
I let my duck legs cook sous vide for 21 hours at 158 F. Afterwards I put them into an ice bath for about 30 minutes to drop the temperature quickly and then refrigerated the bags for the rest of the day.
In the evening, I took the bags out, cut them open, spread the congealed duck fat and juices on top of each leg (skin side), and then roasted the duck legs for 10 minutes. I got very crispy skin and the duck stayed very moist. Excellent results.
I used raw sugar, kosher salt, fresh sage, and lemon zest (our lemon tree has just started producing).
vvv
i made this for last night's dinner. I am new to sous vide, and had never attempted duck confit- it was amazing, and so simple! Everyone was impressed, and I will certainly make this again!
My husband's 70th birthday. We had a sit down lunch. I put the black rice on the plate, then the duck legs and then the Thai green mango salad on top. Lots of compliments. I am not a professional chef and this was pretty easy.
Would the temperature or cooking time need to change if I used chicken leg and thigh?
I would follow the times and temps in the joule guide for chicken legs, I would recommend 70°c for 7-8 hours
Thanks Kyl!
Wondering if you all have tried making chicken legs/thighs confit? How would time and temp differ? Since chicken isn't as fatty as duck, I'm thinking one would need to add a bit more oil than with duck. What would be a good fat to use? Duck fat if one could get it? Thanks!
I'm looking at the comments and the recipe to see the take on this here as I have used a formula from Michael Ruhlman in the past and adapting it to sous vide. Some information needs to be added for the benefit of those new to duck confit.
The big one is to confirm that this is the ultimate do ahead. It's actually a way to preserve. My daughter and I periodically have a "duck day.". We usually process 8-14 ducks. We do season the legs and let them cure in the fridge overnight, making it actually two days.
The breasts are packaged to freeze (although often they end up confited also, works great, good to shred the meat for recipes. And the wings are divine confited) The rest of the birds are made into stock. Have you ever had duck pho? You really really should. Save the jus from the bags, whatever you do, you can add that to the stock.
At the end of the Days of a Dozen Ducks, you take a clean Cambro or two, take the hot duck legs out of the liquid in the bags, separate the fat from the jus, pour the fat over the legs to submerge. Seal it up and stick it in the fridge. Once upon a time they didn't have fridges but the fat covered the meat and protected it and it apparently didn't spoil, but I don't want to test that.
The legs sit there in the fridge until you are ready. They can hang out for months. Slip the number of legs out that you need, put them on a parchment lined sheet because why would you wash a pan when you don't need to and put them in a hot oven until they crisp up. They make a great emergency dinner. When those are in the fridge, there lots of emergencies around here.
And SAVE THE FAT!!! There's not room here to go into that. Look it up.
After seasoning the legs with the proposed 5:2 dry salt / sugar mixture, immediately bagging it, leaving it for 20 hours at 70º Celsius, grilled at 230º Celsius for 8 minutes the dish turned out (nearly) perfect as shown.
I found that adding the herbs were altering the colour (a greyish green) of the leg to the negative side without enhancing flavour—next time I shall abstain from adding the herbs when packing.
