I was recently having dinner at a nice French restaurant and along with my dish of veal bourguignon I was served a dish of confit bell peppers. Well, I had not expected that, nor even considered it as a dish, but it was delicious. I knew I had to make my own version at home, so I created this recipe for duck fat confit bell peppers.
While at first glance this recipe may seem overly decadent (and unhealthy) you have to think of it as a snack. It’s far from a filling American style appetizer, but rather something you’ll have just a few bites of with a slice of crusty baguette. In fact, this recipe uses 4 whole bell peppers, but is meant for around 8 people!
What Does It Mean To Confit?
Confit simply means to cook something at a low temperature in fat. Most popular is probably the French duck confit, however you can really cook anything in this method. I’m a fan of cooking mushrooms in this style like in my rabbit risotto with confit oyster mushrooms or in my ‘There’s Shroom For Two’ Burger.
In fact, the dish that first got me into making confit was a plate of confit frog’s legs at a little French bistro in Lviv, Ukraine. I know – random right!
Making Confit Bell Peppers
An easy rule of thumb with this recipe is one bell pepper per two people. That makes the math super simple, and easily adjustable. Since I’m writing this as a ‘tapas’ style dish for 8 people, I’m using 4 bell peppers.
Slice the peppers into eighths, but do not try too hard to get things uniform. Use the picture above as reference; what you really want are just thick meaty strips.
Place the peppers in a large pan and add about a cup of duck fat. If the fat is solid you may need to wait for it to soften. This amount of duck fat will not cover the peppers so you can kind of cheat by adding a few glugs of olive oil. Or, just add more duck fat (it’s like liquid gold so I try to save it when possible).
Add a healthy sprinkle of salt and put the heat on the lowest setting. This is where you can relax a bit. Making something confit takes a bit of time, but it’s not at all difficult, so you can use this time to clean the kitchen or watch some TV. Just come back in every 10-15 minutes to rotate the peppers from top to bottom.
After roughly 30 minutes, or when the peppers finally begin to get pliable and shiny, add in about four cloves of thinly sliced garlic. Rotate the peppers again to allow the garlic to infuse the fat, and let cook for another 20-30 minutes.
Move the peppers to a serving dish and garnish with a bit of green onion if you wish. Serve with some crusty French bread for the ultimate pre dinner bite.
Duck Fat Confit Bell Peppers
Equipment
- Pan
Ingredients
- 4 large Bell Peppers cut into 8ths (core and stem removed)
- 4 cloves Garlic thinly sliced
- 1 cup Duck Fat more or less as needed to adjust the recipe
- Olive Oil if the duck fat wasn't enough (or just use more duck fat)
- 2 tsp Salt
Instructions
- In a pan add the bell pepper slices and duck fat and salt and put on the lowest setting. If the duck fat doesn't cover at least half the bell peppers add some olive oil or more duck fat. Best case scenario is you can do this in a pot with multiple cups of duck fat, but that isn't easy to obtain for lots of people.
- While keeping the pan on the lowest setting rotate the peppers every 10-15 minutes from top to bottom.
- After about a half hour add in the sliced garlic, rotate the peppers and let cook for another 20-30 minutes.
- Move to a serving dish and garnish with a bit of chopped green onion (optional). Serve with crusty French bread.
