Duck Confit Part One: Cut up duck, render duck fat, salt duck.

The 2.6 kg duck; the biggest one I could find at the grocery store:

All the duck fat, at the start of rendering. Cut into smaller pieces for faster rendering. Use low heat:

Rendering the fat:

Continued rendering:

End of rendering:

The products: One large mug of strained fat and one bowl of crispy duck skin.

Tasty snack or garbage? This is yet to be determined.

Cut-up pieces of duck: 2 legs, 2 wings, 1 neck.

Salt duck: 2 tablespoons salt, 1 tablespoon thyme, ground peppercorns, 2 crushed cloves of garlic. Overnight to 72 hours.

Before:

After 8 hours:

I am going to continue salting until tonight and then leave it in the oven overnight at 180-190F. My apartment smells like duck fat, but tomorrow morning it should smell nice.

This duck had 4 times the fat of the last duck, but was only about 20% bigger. I think approximately 1/3 of this duck was fat. I am saving the breast meat for pan searing. I am more proficient at butchering duck now. It didn’t take as long as last time. I will use the carcass to makes some stock, even though I think I may not like duck stock.

Duck Confit Part Two: The Finished Product

Duck Confit Part Three: One Week Later