Confit means preserved. The method depends on what is being preserved.
The word comes from the French confire, to preserve, and it describes a result more than a recipe: food cooked slowly and gently in the very thing that will keep it. For meat that is fat. For garlic and tomatoes it is oil. For fruit and flower petals it is sugar. Before refrigeration this was how farmhouses in the south-west of France carried the autumn goose and pig through the winter, and the sweet confits of Provence did the same for the summer’s apricots and figs. A leg of duck confit and a jar of rose petal confit share a name because they share a logic, not an ingredient.
Duck confit, and the meat tradition
The classic is confit de canard. Duck legs are rubbed with salt, garlic, thyme and pepper and left overnight; the salt is wiped off; then the legs are submerged in duck fat and cooked at a bare simmer, around 200°F or 90°C, for two to four hours, until the meat yields to a spoon. Stored under the fat in a cold larder or refrigerator, they keep for weeks and improve for the first few days. To serve, the legs are crisped skin-side down in a dry pan until the skin shatters. Goose confit is the grander version; cassoulet is the dish built around it; rillettes are the shredded cousin.
Garlic, tomato and fish confit in oil
The same slow, submerged cooking works in olive oil at an even lower temperature. Whole peeled garlic cloves barely bubbling in oil for forty-five minutes turn soft, sweet and spreadable; cherry tomatoes, shallots and peppers behave the same way; and a piece of salmon or tuna cooked in oil at around 120°F or 50°C emerges silkier than any other method produces. One caution: garlic in oil is not shelf-stable. Refrigerate it and use it within a week, or freeze it. A fruity, peppery oil such as Heritage extra virgin is worth the cost here, because the oil becomes part of the dish.
Fruit confit: candied, not cooked down
Sweet confit begins with fruits confits, the candied fruit of Apt in Provence. Whole fruit or peel is steeped in a sugar syrup that is strengthened day after day, for a week or more, until the sugar has slowly replaced the water inside the fruit. The result is translucent, glossy and whole; the fruit keeps its shape and most of its flavor. A candied chestnut, the marron glacé, is the most elaborate example. This is the opposite of jam, where fruit is boiled down and broken.
Flower confit
Flower confit applies the sugar method to petals. Rose, violet, jasmine or lavender flowers are steeped and gently cooked in syrup so the perfume is captured rather than boiled away, and the result is a loose, spoonable preserve, closer to a thin jelly than to a thick jam. It is strong. A teaspoon is a portion. Our rose petal confit, jasmine flower confit, violet confit and lavender confit are all made by L’Épicurien in France, and the French Garden Trio gathers three of them.
Confiture, jam and preserves
Confiture is the French word for jam: fruit cooked with sugar until it sets. In Europe the word is regulated; a jar labelled confiture must contain at least 35 percent fruit, and confiture extra at least 45. The word confit has no such rule, which is why reading the ingredient list tells you more than the name on the lid. Les Confitures à l’Ancienne fig jam is confiture in the proper sense, cooked in small batches with the fruit left visible.
Is confit the same as jam?
No. Jam is fruit broken down with sugar and set with pectin; it spreads. Fruit confit is whole fruit saturated with sugar; it is eaten in pieces. Flower confit is a perfumed syrup-preserve; it is spooned, not spread. And meat confit has nothing to do with sugar at all.
How to serve fruit and flower confit
Treat it as a finishing ingredient. Rose confit belongs with ricotta, thick yogurt and fresh goat cheese; try our whipped ricotta with rose petal confit or baked feta with rose confit and pistachios. Jasmine confit lifts cream and meringue: pavlova, panna cotta, or whipped ricotta toast at breakfast. Violet confit is the classic companion to crème brûlée and to a triple-cream cheese. A teaspoon of any of them in a glass of Champagne, or stirred into a pot of black tea, is the quickest use of all. On a cheese board, put the fig jam beside the aged cheeses and the flower confit beside the fresh ones.
How long confit keeps
Duck confit under its fat keeps for several weeks in the refrigerator; once the fat seal is broken, use it within a few days. Garlic confit in oil, one week refrigerated. Unopened fruit and flower confit keeps for a year or more in a cupboard; opened, refrigerate it and expect two to three months, since sugar is itself a preservative. The date on the lid is a quality date, not a safety date; see our note on best-by dates.
Terminology varies by maker and region. The ingredient list remains the best authority for what is in a particular jar.
