James Titcumb

Image sourced from: roboppy on flickr under CC-by-nc-nd 2.0 license.

A good confit de canard (duck confit) is hard to get hold of in England, but luckily as my parents live in the Dordogne region they sometimes bring over a tin. A confit de canard is duck legs that are kept in tins, covered in it’s own fat. This fat is great and should be kept after cooking for doing roast potatoes and so on. It’s really easy to cook the duck as well. All you have to do is put in oven for 35-45 minutes (for a good fan assisted, I’d stick to 35-40) at 180 degrees. I simply took the duck legs out of the tin, put them on a grill rack skin side up above a roasting tin to catch the precious duck fat. I poured more of the duck fat over to make sure there was plenty on them, and simply season with salt and pepper. Cook as above, until the skin is nice and crispy. It’ll make a bit of a mess of your oven, but it’s well worth it. After cooking, whilst the fat is still hot and pourable, pour into a container with the remaining fat in the tin and let it cool. Keep this fat in the fridge, and it’ll keep for a few months I believe, and you can use it for roasting potatoes etc. or anywhere where duck fat might be a tasty ingredient. I served ours with mashed potato, carrots and courgette, but traditionally duck might be served with some lettuce and sautéed potatoes.