Penne with Duck Confit Sauce

OK, there is no better way to get Variety Meats Week off to a roaring start than by posting a non-variety meats recipe! Yippeee!

I made duck confit for the dinner party the other night. I highly recommend doing this, because it takes a minimum of work and yields a ready-to-eat marvel that will keep for several weeks. Basically you buy duck legs (with the thighs attached), and you salt them with herbs and spices overnight, then you slowly cook them in rendered duck or goose fat or home-rendered lard (DO NOT use the horrid hydrogenated stuff that is shelf-stable). What happens is that the fat replaces the water in the salted meat, and you can keep the confit, packed in the duck fat, for three weeks. To serve you crisp up the legs on a hot skillet.

We had two legs of confit left, not quite enough for a meal for the three of us, but enough to be used as a base for pasta sauce.

First, trim the meat from the bones and chop into bite sized pieces. Then, fry them in a skillet (no need to add fat, because even if you are meticulous about scraping the fat off the legs, there will be plenty) with a clove of crushed garlic. Deglaze with dry white vermouth and cook down. Add creme fraiche and a crumbled bay leaf and let simmer. Finish with reggiano parmiggiana and freshly cracked pepper. Toss your almost ready pasta in the sauce and finish cooking the pasta in the sauce over moderate flame.

Here is what I didn't do, but would have made the dish much better (it was good, but had room for improvement):

Sliced arugula into thin strips and tossed that in the pasta, along with some chopped parsley.

Next time!