For well over a year now, I've been trying to figure out how to make smoked duck confit. Standard confit technique requires one to cook the duck in duck fat that has been seasoned with herbs and spices. Once the duck is cooked, it is allowed to cool in the fat and can be stored for months. It is an ancient preservation method that yields incredibly tasty meat. Combining confit and smoke is an entirely different matter. I've tried several times, and it never worked out the way I wanted. It was only after I purchased my Sous Vide Supreme that I realized that I might be able to fix some of the problems I had run into previously. What were those problems? Well, the first question is do you smoke or confit first? If you smoke first, the smokiness tends to disperse once you sink the duck into fat and confit. The end product just is unsatisfying. Working in reverse by first using confit and then smoke, the end product tends to be bitter. But one recent day, it occurred to me that sous vide might be the answer. If you can smoke the duck to satisfaction and then seal it in a bag to cook with duck fat, herbs, and spices, then you might avoid the bitterness issue while retaining all the flavor. So, I set forth on a grand experiment to blend sous vide and smoke and see if I had found the secret. Continue reading Smoked Sous Vide Duck Confit here...
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