[Modernist Cuisine] Duck leg confit with pommes sarladaises (3•178; 6•105)

[Anonymous Modernist 210]

This is perhaps one of my favorite techniques in the book. I'm a sucker for a confit and love the fact that I don't need massive quantities of stored fat to make them now. I don't even add the little fat that MC calls for, enough renders when the leg cooks. Tonight I will be trying a similar technique with pork belly.

[Anonymous Modernist 708]

I agree, this was fantastic. I ended up using rock salt as kosher salt is quite expensive here (!!), and after 10-12 hours it came out a tiny bit too salty. Is it the fact that I used rock, is it a 'stronger' salt? Or could I have just used too much or put it in for too long?

Would I be able to confit chicken leg / thigh?

The potatoes were very good too, although I needed to cook them for another 15 minutes.

[Anonymous Modernist 10]

lachyg said:

I agree, this was fantastic. I ended up using rock salt as kosher salt is quite expensive here (!!), and after 10-12 hours it came out a tiny bit too salty. Is it the fact that I used rock, is it a 'stronger' salt? Or could I have just used too much or put it in for too long?

Would I be able to confit chicken leg / thigh?

The potatoes were very good too, although I needed to cook them for another 15 minutes.

Hi lachyg. Where is "here?"

Rock salt is not a stronger salt, as all salt is the same. The difference between different types of salt is the size of the granules. What happens is that the salt draws out the liquid, but then eventually, the liquid dissolves the salt. The size can have an effect on this. You may have just put too much salt on, as the difference in size may have affected your judgment of how much to use.

You can definitely use the same method for chicken. Chicken is a more tender meat, however, so you would only want to cure it for about 2-3 hours.

[Anonymous Modernist 708]

Here is Australia.

I'll give that a go then, thanks!

[Anonymous Modernist 2882]

Hi lachyg, I am in Australia also - Melbourne here. I used kosher salt and it turned out really well. I have attempted this recipe twice - the first time following the spice mixture recommended in the book exactly, and the second time using my own spice mixture.

Served with sous-vide lentils (also in the book).

Served with sous-vide carrots and fried veggies. The potato recipe is from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home. Nothing modernist about it - simply delicious. The duck jus was made in a pressure cooker then reduced and thickened naturally.

[Anonymous Modernist 2565]

Max said:

Hi lachyg. Where is "here?"

Rock salt is not a stronger salt, as all salt is the same. The difference between different types of salt is the size of the granules. What happens is that the salt draws out the liquid, but then eventually, the liquid dissolves the salt. The size can have an effect on this. You may have just put too much salt on, as the difference in size may have affected your judgment of how much to use.

You can definitely use the same method for chicken. Chicken is a more tender meat, however, so you would only want to cure it for about 2-3 hours.

just to point out (without meaning to sound anal) that different salts do differ in taste. kind of like olive oil. depends on the source. although as far as i know, where "strength" of different salts are concerned, they are all the same

[Anonymous Modernist 3265]

Made this at the weekend and it was delicious but, like others, it was a little bit too salty after 10 hours curing. I used ordinary table salt, maybe next time I'll try a couple of hours less in the cure.

I was also a little concerned about cooking this at 82° when the Best Bets table says that duck leg should be cooked at 62° but it seemed fine although I don't of course know if it would have been even better at the lower temperature.

[Anonymous Modernist 291]

A few days ago I started work on a recipe for Duck Leg Confit from

Modernist Cuisine.

First off I needed to

prepare the confit cure mix for the duck legs to cure in for 10 hours under

vacuum.

I am only curing two duck legs so I needed to scale down the

recipe from the book in order to cut down the amount of cure I had to make,

however I still ended up with too much so I vacuum packed it to use another day

on a different recipe. You will need digital gram scales for this

recipe!

Ingredients for confit cure mix

200g kosher

salt

20 toasted coriander seeds

2.2g mashed garlic

1.4g crushed star

anise

1g finely grated orange zest

0.4g thyme leaves

0.16g crushed

black peppercorns

0.08g thinly sliced bay

leaves

Method

Combine, vacuum seal, and refrigerate

until use.

With my cure mix made I then spread 41.5g of the mixture onto

each duck leg and vacuum sealed before placing in the fridge to cure for 10

hours

Day two of the confit cured duck leg recipe from Modernist Cuisine.

My duck legs have been curing in the confit cure mix for

10 hours so it was now time to wash off the cure and dry the duck

legs.

Once the duck legs were dry I vacuum sealed them individually with

20g of duck fat.

I then cooked them for 10 hours at 82 degrees and the outcome was amazing, the best confitI have ever tasted!!

[paulpegg]

I followed the cure and sous vide steps for the duck legs but made my own version of a potato/celery root puree and Kale sides. The sauce is a reduction of the marinade in Momofuku's 48 Hour Short Ribs. This, along with the carrot soup modifications I posted in that discussion made the day. 

[Anonymous Modernist 2044]

We just made this recipe from the MC and it was amazing. Also ours was a bit salty. A couple notes that may help. Since we could only find two ducks for this, and both were from the grocery store. Both were already brined, one in a higher solution than the other. We cured and cooked both per the recipe and used the Confit Salt Cure per the recipe. Both were salty when done, but the one in higher brine solution was obviously saltier.

We are now on the look out for fresh, or non brined. Obvious to us that this was a major factor in both.

Just wanted to put this out here in case anyone had the same issue.