This video shows how to make confit duck.
Where do you get the duck fat? I assume one of the guys at Don and Joe’s can tell me, or maybe they have it themselves. But suppose I can’t find a container of duck fat? How would I get it from a duck? Roast a whole duck and save the drippings, repeating until I have enough?
Cut the fat off the duck (the skin, basically), dice it into small pieces and render it over low heat in a frying pan (like bacon). It helps to cover it with water and render it into the water. If you do it without water, you have to keep spooning out the fat as it renders. If you do it with water, you just wait until the water evaporates.
The leftover skin can be fried up for a tasty snack.
As somebody posted here, and as I was reminded on another video, Costco may have duck confit. So I mightn’t have to go to the trouble. Also, Don and Joe’s website says they usually have it on-hand. I may well be covered!
But back to the OP. I’ve only roasted duck. How do i get the fat off? Take off the skin and scrape it? Disassemble the duck and cut off all the fat? How are the pieces cooked, then?
The other video I mentioned has a ‘quick’ confit recipe. Basically, six legs are wrapped tightly in four layers of heavy foil and then cooked for a couple of hours in a 250ºF oven. Being tightly wrapped, the legs don’t need to be cooked in a vat of rendered fat.
The fat is in the skin. You don’t have to scrape it off the skin. I just pull the fatty skin off the duck, cut it up into little strips and render it down like bacon. Just try to do it on a low enough heat that it doesn’t start to brown. You want to melt it, not cook it. You will have stips of rendered skin left over. Those are good fried up with a little salt (cracklin’s).
I use BBQ ducks from the Chinese butchers, since the’re cheaper than uncooked from the store, and frankly they cook them better than I can. I’ll rip/cut the meat from the bones, then the skin/fat from the meat, then the crunchy top layer of skin from the fat. Four piles: bones, meat, fat, yummy yummy crispy skin.
Bones and fat go into a stockpot and get covered with water. Make a stock, and the fat will dissolve in the stock. Drain the stock into a glass measuring cup big enough to hold it, then put it in the fridge. The next day, your fat has risen to the top and solidified and can be easily scooped up and used/frozen/ treasured and saved as the perfect potato frying medium. And you have awesome broth and duck meat for ye ole cassoulet
The drake!
Diogenes has the basic recipe for making the fat, but the problem with making confit is that you need the fat of of many ducks to make even a few confit’d duck quarters.
You’ve got few options, none of them cheap:
buy 6 or 8 ducks, saw off the legs, and render down the fat from the rest of the duck to get duck fat. You might get enough to confit the legs, but you might not, and you end up with a LOT of leftover duck to use up.
just buy a container of duck fat. Amazon has it. It ain’t cheap. Another option is to go through a restaurant supply place, assuming you can find one that will sell to you or a restaurant that will order it for you. Usually the minimum order is about 5 gallons. That’s a LOT of duck fat.
Sous-vide the confit, which uses WAY less duck fat, but you have to have a sous-vide setup which also ain’t cheap. I happen to have a Sous-Vide Supreme, so that’s how I make confit. You salt & herb the duck quarters for a few days, then seal 'em in a plastic bag along with a few tablespoons of duck fat per bag, and cook them slowly until done. Another advantage of this technique is that the duck is sealed up and easily stored in the fridge for months. I still have one package sitting in the back of the fridge from 4-5 months ago that’s going to be amazing when I open it.
Given the hassle/expense, unless you really want to invest in confit, I’d just buy it. $30 for 6 legs here, though shipping is extra. It’s well worth it, though - the stuff is amazing.