Confit de canard avec les pommes de terre à la sarladaise (rough translation: duck slowly poached in duck fat with potatoes pan-fried in duck fat topped with persillade) is one of those classic dishes from the French South-West which has since become a bistro staple found just about anywhere.

This variation replaces the duck with quail confit because why bother with mere duck when one can make confit with micro-drumsticks; it also keeps incredibly well after it’s made (just leave it submerged/sealed in fat). A persillade is a sauce which in its most basic form consists of garlic, parsley and oil.

Ingredients

• six quail
• coarse sea salt
• turbinado sugar
• black peppercorns
• juniper berries
• dried thyme
• dried bay leaf
• duck fat
• potatoes
• garlic
• fresh flat-leaf parsley

Preparation of the quail confit

Remove the leg quarters (this is the complete drumstick and thigh) from each quail; reserve the remainder of the quail for another purpose. Wash leg quarters, pat dry with paper towel and place in a glass dish in one layer.

Add 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 6-8 peppercorns and three juniper berries to a mortar and pestle. Grind the mixture until it becomes a coarse even powder. Add 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme. Mix thoroughly. Sprinkle this mixture over the quail leg quarters, ensuring that the entire surface area of the quail is coated. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 hours. Remove quail from salt cure, quickly rinse in fresh water to remove excess cure, and pat dry with a paper towel.

Melt duck fat in an oven-proof pot (a small Le Creuset or Corning Vision dutch oven work well) until it is just liquid (do not boil!). The amount of fat required is the volume necessary to submerge the quail entirely in fat once placed in the pot. Add one bay leaf and one peeled clove of garlic to the fat. Carefully add the quail to the duck fat. Once all the quail leg quarters are immersed in oil, cover the pot and place in a 167ºF / 75ºC oven (use an oven thermometer) for 6 hours. Alternate method: seal quail, bay leaf, garlic and duck fat into a plastic bag and place in a 158ºF / 70ºC circulating water bath for 10 hours.

Remove pot from oven and transfer quail into a glass container in a single layer. Sieve duck fat over the quail so that the quail is again submerged in fat. Let cool until fat is cloudy, and then refrigerate. If using sous-vide, immediately ice down the bag in a container of ice water. For best results, quail confit should be left to set up at least 48 hours before service.

Preparation of the potatoes

Place the potatoes into a steamer and steam until almost cooked. Remove from steamer, cut into thick slices and fry potato in duck fat until both sides of the potato slices are browned and crisp (the inside of the potato should be fluffy and fully-cooked). Remove from duck fat and sprinkle with fleur de sel or other flaky sea salt.

Preparation of the persillade

Finely mince two or three large cloves of garlic, using a little salt as an abrasive to assist with mincing. Mince a large handful of flat-leaf parsley. Mix the garlic and parsley together, and add several tablespoons of melted liquid duck fat.

Service

Remove quail from fat and reheat in a low oven (e.g.  225ºF / 107ºC); this step will take at least 20 minutes, which should be adequate to finish making the potatoes. To brown/crisp the quail skin, pass the flame of a blowtorch over the quail skin. Plate fried potato and spoon persillade over potatoes. Plate quail over or beside potato.

Note: the number of quail leg quarters to serve depends on what this particular plate is being used for and how generous you feel (it’s still a lot of quail to section).

Wine pairing

Though the traditional confit wines are from appellations of the South-West, I am not a fan of these wines. This particular confit goes very well with something like a 2005 Quail’s Gate Family Reserve Pinot Noir (Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada).

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