Easy Duck Confit

This is quite possibly the most gratifying combination of simple and delicious. Prepping and cooking is extremely easy, all you need is company to kill the time while you ~Wait & Hope~. We opted for playing cards (gin rummy, president, kemps) and drinking wine.

Ingredients: 

• Salt  
• Pepper
• Dried thyme (few teaspoons)
• Bay leaves (crumbled, about 3 and a couple whole ones)
• Garlic (keep the skin)
• 4 duck legs (keep the fat)
• Little potatoes (purple and brown)
• Fresh rosemary
• Arugula 
• Full-body red wine (we had Bordeaux, also recommended Burgundy, Cotes du Rhone)

Cooking:

• In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper, thyme and bay leaf pieces. Poke the duck fat (not the meat) with the tip of a sharp knife (this will help the fat melt, video for example). Sprinkle duck generously with mixture (on both sides). Place duck legs in a dish. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate, for as long as 24 hours, I did 6 because I forgot.

• When you’re ready to cook, heat oven to 325 degrees. Snugly arrange the legs fat side down in a dutch oven (you can also use an oven-proof pan and cover it with foil, but make sure it is tall enough so when the fat melts it won’t spill over). Add garlic and a few bay leaves. I used a whole garlic and separated it into 2 and cut the tops off the cloves. Another recipe suggested fresh ginger and hot peppers.

• Roast duck legs for 2.5 hours with the lid on the pot. I checked on it after 2 hours and made sure the fat was melted and everything looked okay, mostly because I am impatient.
• When the 2.5 hours are almost up, boil your potatoes in a large pot. Time ended up getting away from us so we cooked them on the stove, but you can put them in the oven with the duck at the end ( Recipe here ). Before putting them in the oven, dry them off and cut into halves. Add fresh rosemary and duck fat.
• Remove the duck legs and increase the oven temperature to 400. Place the legs on a cookie sheet and put them back in the oven for ~20 minutes, keep an eye on them. This will make the skin crispy.

After 2.5 hours roasting

At the end

• Bon apetit! Place the duck legs on fresh arugula and serve with potatoes.

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Adapted from these sources:

This Recipe and This Video