Duck confit

Eastside Road, May 8, 2014—

ONE OF THE Hundred Plates for sure, and a particularly delicious thing, duck confit. I won't give you the recipe for it — we've made our own confit, though with goose, not duck; I'm sure the principle's the same: slow-cook the meat in its own fat, flavored with herbs and spices; then put it down covered in more fat, rendered, to age and mature.

Goose confit is indispensable to Cassoulet, and it looks like this is yet another year we've lost the opportunity to make one — it's a cold-weather dish; I wouldn't make it later than March. Maybe this winter.

Duck confit, on the other hand, is fine eaten all by itself, and in my mind at least not at all restricted to cold-weather menus. Here it is, for example, with obviously springtime garden peas. Also on the plate, the last of Cook's delicious potato-fava-pea salad; duck does indeed demand potatoes; rice will really not do.

We didn't confit these duck legs ourselves: they're from the butcher shop at Café Rouge, and they are delicious. They are also the last of the season, I'm told; that shop doesn't agree with me as to the lack of seasonality for duck confit…

Barolo d'Asti, Rocca dell'Olmo (Piemonte), 2011