John Wulff

Duck confit is easy to make and deliciously decadent. 1 duck leg per person is a reasonable portion but no one would complain if you served them 2. I experimented with using duck breasts in addition to legs (couldn't get my hands on enough legs last time I made it). Breasts seem to take on a lot more salt when you cure them, their skin is far fattier/thicker and doesn't crisp like the leg skin does, and the meat is not dense enough. I'd stick to whole duck legs.

Ingredients

• 6 to 10 whole duck legs (Whole Foods normally has them frozen)
• 2 to 3 lbs duck fat (asian markets normally have it frozen)
• 2 to 3 cups kosher salt
• 2 heads garlic
• 2 large shallots or 4 small ones

Cure

Chop the roots off of two heads of garlic, put them in your food processor paper and all. Toss in a few shallots too, no need to peel. Add 2 or 3 cups of kosher salt, depending on how much duck you're curing. Process until there're no visible chunks of garlic or shallot. Put a layer of cure in a casserole dish, lay duck on top, cover duck with rest of cure making sure duck is as encased in cure as possible. If you don't have enough cure to completely cover just pour some more kosher salt on. Put in the fridge overnight (8-12 hours).

Cook

Take the duck out of salt cure. Rinse thoroughly to get all the salt off and dry with paper towels.

Put the duck fat into a pot, heat slowly until the fat melts and is clear. Burning duck fat is a sin, be patient.

Put the duck in the fat. Try to get all the pieces completely submerged. If a few bits stick out a bit don't worry too much. As the duck gives off moisture and fat it will shrink and sink a bit.

Cover and put in a 180 degree oven for 6-10 hours. Longer the better. A few hours in, your house will smell amazing and people will start to ask why you won't let them eat the duck yet, why you are so mean, and why you are torturing them.

Remove the duck from it's bath, let the fat drain off but don't try to pat it off with towels or anything, you'll just massacre it. Serve over quinoa, in a cassoulet, in a salad, or just eat it over the sink. It's hard to go wrong.

Strain the duck fat and freeze it for next time, you can get several/many uses out of it. Also, I recommend filling a ramekin/small glass with some duck fat and putting it in your fridge. Use it in place of butter. Eggs scrambled in duck fat are amazing, bonus points for duck eggs scrambled in duck fat.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the finished product. It was so tasty I forgot. It doesn't look to different from how it started, just a little browner.

My burger at Shultzy’s is no longer on the menu. It’s gone. I hope you had a chance to try it.

It was a sweet ride while it lasted. I guess I’m just not cut out to be a gastronomical rock star.

Thanks Bruce, Don, and everyone else at Shultzy’s.

Shultzy’s has a new website, check it out.

Also, I found their not-yet-publicized Twitter account. One more reason to frequent Shultzy’s! (I really didn’t need any more reasons to frequent Shultzy’s.)