Confit cooking may sound like a phrase plucked from fancy restaurants and exotic cuisines, but this technique is so simple you can do it from the comfort of your home. Confit cooking is an innovative technique you can use to prepare meats at relatively low temperatures to get a delicious and healthy meal. The technique comes from a traditional French culinary technique of cooking food in fat at low temperatures, creating an inhospitable environment for bacteria and preventing spoilage.
Foiegood have developed a technique to develop the process using olive oil. We use extra virgin olive oil, the highest quality and most recognizable flavor. This way we achieve a unique taste in our confit by reducing the number of calories and with less saturated fats. In both cases, the aim is to creating an inhospitable environment for bacteria and preventing spoilage. Whether you want to slowly tenderize duck, poultry, pork, goose meat, or veggies, Confit cooking is the ideal method to use to get great results.
If you would like to enjoy our duck confit in foiegood’s shop you can find our duck wings and thighs.
What are the key ingredients in confit cooking?
Confit is a versatile cooking and preservation technique you can use to preserve and prepare delicious foods. If you are looking for a traditional cooking technique with a hint of modernism to spice up your cooking experience, confit can transform your culinary experience.
At Foiegood we use this technique for the elaboration of our products. Our preparation process, developed by our R&D team, is what makes possible to produce our confit with its smooth and deep flavour.
Some essential ingredients for making confit include:
Fat (we use olive oil)
Whether in preservation or cooking, fat is a component in confit. The fat helps to protect the meat from bacteria in preservation. In confit cooking, the fat is crucial in making the meat tender and delicious by adding flavor.
Salt
It’s essential to draw water from your meat before submerging it in liquid oil to enhance the confit cooking process. Salt absorbs water from meats and replaces it with liquid oil, giving the meat a tender texture when cooked.
How does confit work?
Confit cooking involves preparing meals in liquid oil at a low temperature. Since you are preparing meats at relatively low temperatures of around 92C or lower, the process takes longer. Whether seeking a simple plant-based or meat culinary technique to enhance your cooking experience, confit cooking is a perfect addition to your home-cooking skill set.
Different meals you can prepare in confit cooking include:
Beyond meats. Surprise yourself with vegetable confit.
While confit cooking is mainly associated with preparing meat dishes, you can also use the technique to prepare vegetables. The steps for a diet-based confit include:
- Clean your vegetables and make sure they are dry
- Place your vegetables on a cooking pot and add spices such as herbs, rosemary, or pepper.
- Add enough cooking oil to the pot to cover your vegetables. Preferably, use olive oil because it’s healthier than most liquid oils.
- Cook for around 30 minutes in low-medium heat. You can serve your vegetables once they are cooked and tender.
Meat confit
Confit cooking is synonymous with delicious meaty dishes, and with good reason- it produces fantastic, tender, and mouthwatering meats. Whether you are a pork, duck, fish, beef, or poultry person, you can use the confit technique to make delicious dishes.
Here are the steps to use when preparing meat in confit:
- Flavor a mixture of curing and kosher salt with seasoning flavors, including garlic, pepper.
- Coat the meat with the seasoning mixture, ensuring every surface is covered.
FAQs
Traditionally, confit simply refers to any sort of preserved food, whether it's meat, fruit, or vegetables. This preservation takes place by slowly cooking food in a liquid that is inhospitable to bacterial growth.
Is confit healthy? ›
Duck confit is a good option for anyone monitoring their weight because it is low in calories. High quantities of oleic acid found in duck fat have been demonstrated to decrease cholesterol and lessen the risk of heart disease. Duck fat also has antioxidants that can help shield your cells from harm.
What temperature is confit oil? ›
While deep frying typically takes place at temperatures of 160–230 °C (325–450 °F), confit preparations are done at a much lower temperature, such as an oil temperature of around 90 °C (200 °F), or sometimes even cooler.
What does confit mean in French? ›
Confit is a French word that means "preserved." In the confit method, meats are cooked in fat for a long time at low temperatures. This renders tough cuts like duck legs more tender, and when stored in duck fat in a cool place, they last all winter.
Should confit be refrigerated? ›
Yes. You can store it up to the best before date. However once open, your duck confit needs to be stored in a fridge and consumed within 3 days.
What is the best meat to confit? ›
Go classic with duck confit
Duck confit is, of course, a French classic that brings you back to the origins of the process. The traditional duck confit recipe involves submerging salted duck legs in large amounts of duck fat and cooking them for about 2½ to 4 hours.
What are the side effects of garlic confit? ›
The primary concern with garlic confit is botulism, and botulism is one food-borne illness you definitely don't want to mess with... unless you like the idea of muscular paralysis slowly setting in until you're unable to breathe, all while completely conscious.
Can you use vegetable oil instead of olive oil for confit? ›
Though this garlic confit recipe calls for thyme and bay leaves, you can customize the flavor notes by swapping these out for other herbs or by omitting them altogether. We like the marriage of garlic with olive oil, but there's no reason not to try this with another neutral vegetable oil, such as grapeseed.
Can you reuse confit oil? ›
And remember, the oil can also be reused. What else can I confit? Any meat that has a lot of connective tissue is delicious in a confit. The long cooking time will break down the tough cut of meat and the oil will keep it from getting dry.
Why is my duck confit too salty? ›
Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Melt 12 oz of duck fat in small skillet or microwave. Remove the duck legs from the brine and rinse thoroughly with cold water to remove the salt/ seasonings (if you don't do this, your duck will be wayyyy too salty).
Take your time! It's much better to cook the Confit more slowly than to rush the process and end up with tough meat. In most cases, it will take at least four hours for the duck to reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees F or until its flesh can easily be pulled away from the bone using two forks.
What do you eat with confit? ›
10 side dishes to serve with Duck Confit
- Crispy roasted potatoes. Crispy roasted potatoes and duck confit are the ultimate power couple – especially when you cook them just right. ...
- Broccoli salad. ...
- Pea Puree. ...
- Duck fat rice. ...
- Pasta. ...
- Mashed potatoes. ...
- Cauliflower gratin. ...
- Garlic butter mushrooms.
Duck confit is a classic French preparation that produces silky, tender meat that can be preserved (what "confit" means in French) for a long period of time, thanks to the protective, air-blocking seal formed by the rendered fat that the duck is submerged and cooked in.
How does garlic confit prevent botulism? ›
This step helps prevent contamination from harmful bacteria. Acidify the Ingredients (Optional): While garlic is low in acidity, adding acid to the confit can inhibit the growth of botulinum bacteria. You can achieve this by adding a small amount of lemon juice or vinegar to the oil before cooking.
Why is garlic confit so popular? ›
The process of preserving garlic is a good one because it renders garlic sweet and spreadable. Perfect for sandwiches, salads, stirring into pasta, etc. You name it, and confit garlic can make it better.
