Sous Vide Duck Confit
Duck confit, but without the fuss of dealing with all the fat. We'll just be dealing with the duck part first, and I'll include the recipe for the accompaniments below.
Ingredients
2 Duck Legs
A tablespoon of Duck Fat
A sprig of Rosemary
3-4 Sprigs of Thyme
3-4 Fresh Bay Leaves
6-7 Juniper Berries
4 Cloves of Garlic
Sea Salt
Pepper
Method
Preheat sous vide machine to 69°C. Dry off your duck legs with a paper towel. Mince together the juniper, garlic, and three good pinches of sea salt, with a knife.
In a bowl, rub that mixture into the duck on both sides. Add to a ziplock bag (reusable is ideal!) or vacuum sealer if you go that way. Follow in with rosemary, thyme and bay, and any leftover garlic/juniper from the duck. Finally, drop in about a tablespoon of duck fat.
Close up the bag most of the way, and submerge in the water bath (leaving the top out of the water). Press as much of the air out as possible (essentially creating a vacuum.) Seal it up all the way, clip to the side and put a lid on your container if you've got one.
Let it cook for 40 hours.
Once done, remove from the sousvide, and pour the duck legs out into a dish. Pick off any herbs/spices that may have clung to the meat in the process. Save those juices for a sauce! Pat the duck legs dry, thoroughly. You can french/trim the duck legs at this point too so they look nice and tidy.
In a cast iron frying pan, heat to a medium high heat, add a little oil and then fry the duck skin to a crisp. I sometimes, very carefully and at a distance, use a chefs torch to help get into the funkier angles. Serve with, well, pretty much whatever you can come up with - here's what I did:
Ingredients:
Purple Tenderstem Broccoli
6 Purple Potatoes
2 Japanese Sweet Potatoes
3 Cloves of Garlic
Juice of two blood oranges
Sous vide Juices
Butter
Oat Milk (normal milk is fine too)
Microgreens
Salt
Red Wine Vinegar
Pomegranate seeds
The darkest, bitterest chocolate you can find
Method
Peel and dice the purple and japanese sweet potatoes. Boil in salty with 3 cloves of garlic until fork tender. Steam dry. Push the whole lot through a sieve or use a potato ricer, then add 50g of butter and a splash of milk. Fold together and taste - it may need a little salt, but not too much, the salty water should've done it's job.
For the broccoli, blanch in boiling water for about 1-2 minutes. Steam dry. Sprinkle with a couple of pinches of table salt, allow the moisture to be extracted for about 20 minutes. When done toss in about 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar.
Mix the juice of two blood oranges in with the sous vide juices from the duck. Strain into a pot, and reduce by a third. Should be salty, sweet and incredibly aromatic.
Serve with duck on top of the mash, broccoli nestled in, Lashings of the sauce over top, along with a scattering of pomegranate seeds. Use a microplane to grate over some of that chocolate, and sprinkle over some microgreens.
Keep the sauce handy, that stuff is addictive.
