Luxuriously simple chicken confit; when one thinks of confit, the word simple doesn’t usually appear. They typically think of fancy restaurants, chefs and a complicated dish. The reality is confit is no more tricky than planning an outfit in advance. It requires forethought, but not much more. I made a beautiful duck confit for our recent anniversary and it took a little planning, but the beauty is the oven does most of the grunt work.
Confit is a dish that is based wholly and unadulteratedly around fat. A combination of duck fat and olive oil to be precise, but lots of it. Enough to completely over the chicken legs and render them helpless, with no other option than to submit. What comes out of the oven and onto the plate is truly sublime. Tender, fall apart chicken. Subtly flavoured with herbs and garlic. Give the chicken a wee blast under the grill for a crispy coating and you have the best Sunday dinner.
This is, in fact the basic recipe for any kind of confit. Consider duck legs, rabbit or even small lamb shanks. Any meat on the bone will improve with covered in a herb salt and paralysed by a bath of fat. I would love to hear what combinations you explore.
Ingredients
- 100gm sea salt
- 6 fresh bay leaves
- 4 whole chicken legs, bone in and skin on
- 10gm fresh thyme
- 5 juniper berries
- 1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled and cut in half horizontally
- A good coating of pepper
- Enough fat or olive oil to cover - I used duck fat, topped up with olive oil
Instructions
In a food processor, whizz together your salt and bay leaves until you've got a gorgeous fragrant green cure. Rub and massage this salt all over the chicken legs and leave them aside to lightly cure. A couple of hours in the fridge should do it. Remove from the fridge, wipe the salt of each chicken leg and place into a heavy based casserole with a lid. You want the chicken to fit snuggly in one layer.
Preheat your oven to 150 degrees. Cover the chicken with the thyme, sprinkle in the juniper berries and place the halved garlic bulb in, cut side down. Grind over lots of pepper and then completely cover with duck fat. If you don't have quite enough, gently top it up with olive oil. Place the lid on the casserole and into the oven for 4 hours.
At this stage you can either cool them completely in the casserole and store in the fridge as is, until you wish to use them. Or if you're impatient like myself, you can get them ready for dinner. Heat the grill to 220 degrees and place the chicken legs, skin side up under the grill until the skin is crispy - 4 minutes or so.
Serve with mash and a beautiful sharp salad of oranges and radish.
