Basic Confit Recipe

By corlear

Ingredients

• Any or all of these:
• 2 lb boned shoulder pork, in 1/2 lb pieces
• jointed poultry — goose, turkey, duck or chicken
• jointed game — pheasant, hare, venison
• For every 2 lb meat mix:
• 1 1/2 oz salt
• 1/4 oz saltpetre (from chemists)
• 2 crushed juniper berries
• 4 crushed black peppercorns
• pinch thyme
• a crumbled bay leaf
• lard

Preparation

Step 1

Rub the meat with the spice mixture and leave it overnight.

Sterilize the containers — wide-mouthed stoneware jars, or Kilner jars — with soda and boiling water, or by putting them in the dishwasher. Cold-water sterilising methods leave a faint but nasty taste. Cover the jars with a clean cloth until they are needed.

Take half the total weight of meat in best lard and melt it in a heavy saucepan; when it is hot, put in the pieces of meat. Put on the lid, which should be well-fitting, and cook gently, either in a low oven or on top of the stove. Test the meat after one hour with a skewer; if it is tender remove it from the fat and leave it to drain — the saltpetre will have given the meat a pinkish tinge, do not be tempted to overcook because of this — if the meat is tender, it is done.

Pour off the clear fat and reserve; throw away the rest. Pour about 1 1/2” fat into each jar and leave it to harden. Put in the pieces of meat, keeping the different sorts separate. Pour in more lard, to cover the meat and come level with the brim; it will shrink as it cools. Press a disc of waxed paper right down on to the surface of the lard, before putting on the lid of the jar, or a lid of foil.

Thus sealed, the confits can be stored for up to a year. To remove a piece of meat, stand the jar in a low oven until the lard melts and the meat floats to the surface. Remove as much as you need, and re-cool the jar, so that the fat closes over the remaining meat, topping up with more lard if necessary. Clear labelling, with the date, is important.

Either reheat the preserved meat and serve with mashed potatoes and some sort of sharp sauce (apple for the pork and goose, for instance), or add the pieces to stews made with fresh meat; especially useful when you have to "stretch" a dish to accommodate an extra person.