Crock Pot Duck Confit

Submitted by chia2160

"this is from today's paper and tastes just as good as the stove top version"

 

• Ready In: 15hrs
• Ingredients: 8
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 2 1⁄2 cups kosher salt
• 2 1⁄2 cups sugar
• 4 duck hindquarters
• 14 ounces duck fat, you can substitute chicken fat
• extra virgin olive oil, if needed
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 10 peppercorns, crushed
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme

directions

1. combine salt and sugar.
2. put the legs in a plastic container, cover with salt/sugar mix, cover and refrigerate overnight.
3. rinse the duck and soak in cold water to cover for 2 hours.
4. drain duck and put into crock pot.
5. cover with duck fat and use olive oil if needed to completely cover.
6. add garlic, pepper, thyme.
7. turn crock pot on to low setting, cook for 3 hours until meat falls off the bone.
8. remove from crock pot, pour fat into a ceramic bowl.
9. let the duck and fat cool to room temperature.
10. store the duck in the fat in an airtight plastic container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Reviews

[kiwidutch]

Wonderful! This was my first attempt at making confit du canard and it won't be the last. I couldn't find just legs anywhere and while France is close by, it's not THAT close by LOL,... so I bought my ducky (whole bird) frozen in the Chinese supermarket and parked it in the bottom of the fridge to thaw out. Note to self: when it says whole bird it meant whole bird, my poor beast still had it's head on. Thanks heavens for a farm upbringing, but even I had to look away as I decapitated it. We used 5 cloves of fresh garlic and a whole handful of thymeas we like strong herby flavours. My crockpot only has one setting so I set it for 6 hours and covered it in duck fat, but after 5 hours it was falling off the bone to the extent that I had difficulty removing it from the crockpot without the meat sliding off the bones. I set it aside to serve, ( my first photo) and then noticed that it was still rather swimming in the duck fat... more than we could handle, so I got out my metal roasting dish and the "V" shaped metal stand, covered the stand with a double layer of tinfoil, poked as many slim holes into the bottom with a sharp knife as I thought i could get away with ( at least 20) and added 1/2 cup water to the bottom of the pan so that any fat dripping out didn't burn. Then I added the duck, with the skin parts uppermost. Whilst the skin bits crisped up rather nicely, a rather an amazing amount of fat dripped out into the water below(second photo). The meat was still soft and tender, still not as soft as French commercially made confit, but very edible. The one thing that I missed in this recipe was a suitable jus or gravy to really set off the meat to perfection. I will work on that ! I was a little surprised that not more of the garlic and thyme flavours were in the meat at the end.. I will work on that too! Please see my rating system: 4 excellent stars for a great starting point for confit du canard, one that I will be taking much further in an effort to enjoy one of my favourite dishes more often. Thanks!