How To Prepare Duck Confit From A Tin?

When spending all day with French foods, it’s easy to take some things for granted, like how to prepare certain French dishes.

Duck confit from a tin is just one example.

We are often getting asked ‘What do I do with my duck confit from a tin?’

We have had many friends over the years take a tin home and it has never sees the light of day because they don’t know what to do with it?

So instead of seeing this French delicacy go to waste and spend the rest of its days in a cupboard collecting dust. We’ve curated a few simple steps to prepare and enjoy your duck confit.

Place Your Duck Confit Tin At Room Temperature

A few hours before you use it. Why? Tins of duck confit contain a liberal amount of duck fat. If the tin is cold, the duck fat is solid, making it very hard to remove the duck legs without breaking them. If the tin and contents are at room temperature, the duck fat becomes loose, making it much easier to remove the duck legs.

If you did forget to do this, you can always place your duck confit in tepid water for half an hour for much the same effect.

Brush Off Excess Duck Fat

We recommend carrying out the following over or in your kitchen sink as confit is fat!

Open your tin. Remove the duck legs and allow any excess duck fat to drain off back into the tin. Then place your duck legs into an oven dish. If there still seems to be a little too much duck fat, you can scrape it off with a spoon.

The reason for this is that duck confit is already fat and the fat on the duck confit and in the skin is more than enough for cooking it. If you don’t brush off the excess fat, your confit will be swimming in duck fat when you come to serve it.

Place Duck Confit In An Oven

180c-190c skin side up until golden brown. This usually takes around 20 to 25 minutes depending on your oven. But the main indicator that your confit is ready to serve is the skin colour. Once your duck confit skin is golden brown, it is ready!

Bearing in mind that canned duck confit is already cooked – all you are doing is heating up/ finishing it off correctly. So there is no risk of the duck meat being undercooked.

Keep Your Duck Fat For Duck Fat Roast Potatoes!

Keep the duck fat in the tin and store it in a fridge. Duck fat is a tremendous fat for roasting vegetables, especially roast potatoes and is a wonderful ingredient in it’s own right. We have linked up to a BBC Good Food Recipe by Angela Nilsen, Ultimate Roast Potatoes, which may be of interest!

We also stumbled across a lovely website called Cooking Gorgeous  whoes duck fat roasted potatoes recipe looked mouth-wateringly good!

At The Good Food Network, One thing to note about duck confit is that the fat is surprisingly healthy because it is low in saturated fats.

So for those of you who are particularly health-conscious, you need not to worry. You can enjoy all the lovely flavours of duck confit without any worry.

We’ve also written a post on how to store duck confit, which may be of interest!