Would chicken confit be pointless?

[Live_to_cook]

As you can tell from such a question, I have no culinary education. I've enjoyed duck confit in restaurants but would have to mail order the duck where I am (Buffalo, NY) and the budget won't allow it right now.

Is it that chicken is simply too mild to benefit from being cooked slowly in its own rendered fat? As such, the effect hardly worth the effort? Or is it something else?

I'm just curious, so if one of the learned among you would scratch my itch I'd appreciate it.

[cape chef]

Hi, I would say becouse of the percentage of white meat in a chicken that the curing stages of confiting would leave your bird tired and thirsty.If duck or goose are cost prohibited try a simply pork butt.good fat content and holds up great to curing. you can ask your butcher for pork fat if you don't have enough. Remember very soft simmer you don't want to fry your confit. Anyway cut the meat into medium size pieces proceed with curing 24 hour or more. remove ecess salt place in a heavy gadge marmit with your melted fat and start to go. cook untill your meat has reached a internal temputure of 165 to 180. let cool and then refridgerate. when you remove some meat to do a recipe cover the whole in the fat as to reduce the amount of air to get in contact with the meat. ( note you can use the fat over and over again. just keep the sediment down to a minamum. I hope this helps and enjoy

[Pete]

Duck confit is usually made from duck legs not the breast. The same would go with chicken. The problem with chicken is that it is not nearly as fatty as duck so I don't think you would get enough fat to confit the legs. I also don't know if chicken fat stores as well as duck fat. The compromise here would be to buy duck fat through mail order (yes it is available) or buy ducks through mail order and render the fat, confit the legs and use the fat for making chicken confit. The nice thing about duck fat is that it can be used a number of times before you must discard it. So make the duck confit once, save the fat, and use it for chicken legs a couple of times. The duck fat also makes a very flavorful fat for frying things, especially potatoes.

[chefjohnpaul]

The poultry leg is what is normally turned into confit. Pork is an excellent suggestion, basically you'd make carnitas. I would imagine the method for confit can be utilized with and bird leg,i.e. simmered in fat at about 212'F. I have even used salad oil, without an extensive cure on squab legs, and they turned out fine for what I utilized them for. Basically you are letting the heat break down the connective tissue and the oil is the means of transfer of the heat, also adding flavor and preserving it if executed properly. That's my take. Hope it helps.



[This message has been edited by chefjohnpaul (edited August 26, 2000).]

[Isa]

In certain regions of France you can find not only duck confit but also goose, turkey, rabbit, veal and chicken.


Sisi

[Live_to_cook]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I think I'm going to get a chef I know at a real nice restaurant to pony up a couple cups of duck fat. Get some chicken legs and see how the whole experiment turns out.

Merci beaucoup.

[Mezzaluna]

Isn't the pork version called rillettes? I ate plenty of it in France, then made some when I returned. Melted the fat, cooked the meat almost below simmer with spices (I seem to remember a tiny bit of quatre epices) and a little bay leaf, then shredded the cooked meat and stored it, topped by its fat, in a crock. I did refrigerate it.

[Pete]

Rilletes are similar to confit but not quite the same. In rillete the pork is actually mixed with the fat and seasoning to create an edible "paste" to be spread on bread, crackers, etc. In confit, the fat is the cooking and preserving medium, but is not really eaten except for what the duck absorbs.