Confit

Confit (also duck confit, confit de canard) is meat rubbed with dry salt, cooked slowly in the fat of the same bird and stored covered by that fat. In south-west France it is made from duck and goose legs and wings. The fat does two jobs here: first it is the cooking medium, then it becomes a lid that protects the meat in the jar.

In 1764 the agronomist Alletz described a recipe that has barely changed: goose pieces are salted lightly, left two days to take the salt, then cooked in a cauldron in the geese's own fat. The PGI file says south-western farms kept goose this way from the 17th century, and late in the 19th century confit went into cans.

Label Rouge LA 19/02 allows only legs, wings, manchons and gizzards for duck confit; the south-western PGI adds magret. The goose name, Confit d'oie du Sud-Ouest, covers legs and wings only.

Label Rouge allows dry salt only, no brine, then 24–72 hours chilled at +4 °C. The pieces cook in an open pot in fattened-duck fat, stirred regularly, and are tested with a needle: when clear juice with no blood comes from the centre, they are done. They are drained, covered tightly with warm fat, and pasteurised up to 95 °C or sterilised in cans up to 120 °C. Conserves then mature for a month before sale. Goose confit has its own rules: at least 12 hours in salt, at least 30 minutes of cooking, no pressure cooking, no searing, and pepper as the only spice.

Label Rouge confit should be both firm and melting, with white or yellow fat, filtered and never rancid. Goose pieces keep the shape of the leg or wing.

Rillettes are meat pulled into fibres, while confit sits in whole pieces on the bone. Dried magret is salted and dried, never cooked in fat. Duck and goose confit differ in the cuts allowed, and the fat always comes from the same bird.

On a jar of legs and wings look for «Confit de canard»; other cuts are called «confit de … de canard». In a can, drained meat must fill at least 50 % of the volume. Goose confit from the south-west is the PGI Confit d'oie du Sud-Ouest: nationally since 2024 and in the EU since June 2026, according to the ministry; about 45 t is made a year. Keep a conserve until the best-before date on the pack.

According to the Ciqual 2025 table, 100 g of canned duck confit gives 273 kcal, 25.7 g protein, 18.8 g fat and 1.44 g salt. The wider family is on Pâtés, rillettes, foie gras and confit, and the ducks themselves on Canard à foie gras du Sud-Ouest.

Why this matters to you: confit is salted first, then cooked slowly without frying and sealed under fat, so the jar can wait on the shelf until the date on its lid.