Ingredients
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Curing Salt Recipe
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500 mg rock salt
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1 piece orange rind
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1 piece lemon rind
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2 Bay Leaves
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3 garlic cloves
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6 sprigs thyme
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2 sprigs rosemary
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4 star anise
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1 piece cinnamon stick
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5 mg fennel seeds
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5 mg juniper berries
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5 mg black peppecorns
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Duck Legs
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4 Duck legs
Directions
This delicious confit duck leg recipe was provided by Chef Simon Moss, the Head Chef at Melbourne’s Grosvenor Hotel. Check out our interview with Simon to learn more about his career, his work at the Grosvenor Hotel, and advice for young cooks and chefs.
Curing Salt Recipe
This confit duck recipe will make more than you will need for a single meal. But it keeps well in the fridge for a few weeks and it can also be used on other dense cuts like pork belly.
- Put the salt in a blender and add all the ‘soft’ ingredients.
- Pulse until it is well distributed through the salt
- Take the hard spices and put them in a tea-towel and smash them up with a rolling pin, meat mallet or even a small pot
- Add the broken-up spices to the blender and pulse again so that it is all incorporated well and smells fragran
Curing the Duck Legs
- Take the legs and lay them skin side down on a stainless-steel tray
- Liberally sprinkle the meat with the salt
- Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 12 hours.
- After the 12 hours thoroughly wash the legs in cold water. Drain and wipe dry with a paper towel
- Warm up the duck fat and then submerge the legs, skin side facing up
- Cover with foil – they are now ready to bake
Baking the Duck Legs
- You have 2 options when cooking them:
- On 100’C for around 3 hours or
- 66’C for 12 hours
- Once the selected cooking time has lapsed, leave the duck legs in the fat to cool down before you trim them up ready to reheat.
- Alternatively, they can be placed in a non-stick pan, skin side down and browned nicely to be eaten straight away
- If you’re not in a hurry to eat them, transfer the legs and fat into a plastic container and leave them in the fridge so the fat solidifies. They will keep for months this way as long as the fat is set, and no part of the duck is exposed.
Want to learn more about confit? Check out our article about confit and its history by Swiss Chef Thomas Wenger.
