Duck Confit

Ingredients: 

8 duck legs -- about 2kg
24g fine salt
8 juniper berries
6g whole black pepper
8 dried curry leaves
6g yellow mustard seeds
240g duck fat -- see notes
4 fat garlic cloves -- see notes

Pull the curry leaves apart into bits with your hands. Put all of the spices into a *mortar and pestle and crush roughly. Stir in the salt.

Rub all of the cure over the duck legs.

Let sit for 24-48 hours.

Rinse off all the cure, and pat dry.

Vacuum seal 2 of the duck legs at a time, with 60g duck fat and a clove of garlic.

Sous vide at 75C for 10 hours, and chill down. Stash in fridge for at least a week before eating.

Notes: 

Duck Fat: Hank Shaw suggests 1tbsp per two legs. I was trying to use up the rest of the duck fat I had already open from the can, so I added more. I also suspect that using more duck fat may lend the resulting confit a more unctuous flavor.

Garlic Cloves: For each bag of confit, use either two small cloves or a single fat one.

I use Michael Ruhlman's estimate of 6g salt per 500g duck. I often cure it for the full 48 hours, and do not find my duck to be too salty. If I am reusing duck fat, I generally adjust the salt downwards.

While Hank Shaw suggests 65C-75C, I saw lots of places suggesting 75C-82.5C. As I made a double batch (usually, I only do 4 at a time), and didn't have any curing salt on hand, I did it at a higher temperature this time as I expect that it will be kept for longer.

I have made a previous batch of sous vide duck confit, cooked at 65C, and then kept in the fridge for 2 weeks. The meat was deliciously tender, and the fat meltingly soft.

Prior to this, I had only ever made duck confit with olive oil. If you do not have a sous vide machine, I highly recommend the slow cooker or oven method with olive oil. Still superbly tasty. It is, however, messier.

I would actually not have bothered to use duck fat except Matthias bought me a can of duck fat some time back, and my vacuum sealer does not deal well with liquids.

Tasting Notes to come in a few weeks