Chicken Confit With Roasted Potatoes and Parsley Salad

By Sam Sifton

Updated May 30, 2024

Chicken Confit With Roasted Potatoes and Parsley Salad
Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Rebecca Bartoshesky.
Total Time
3 hours, largely unattended
Rating
4(343)
Comments
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This recipe takes its name from the French technique for preserving food by salting it and cooking it for a long time in fat, as in your classic duck or goose confit. But it isn’t truly a confit — you won’t need gallons of fat. It’s more of a slow braise in olive oil scented with thyme and garlic. The chicken grows dense in the cooking, and deeply flavorful. (Have an immersion circulator? Just bag the chicken with a few tablespoons of olive oil, some salt, pepper, peeled garlic and a couple sprigs of thyme, then put it in the bath at 165 degrees for about four hours.) Pull the chicken from the oil when it’s done, and allow it to chill uncovered in the refrigerator until you’re ready to crisp it up in a hot pan while the potatoes roast unattended in the oven. For serving alongside, you discipline some parsley with a knife, and mix it with a salty, acidic mustard dressing that complements the bird.

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Ingredients

Yield:2 servings
  • 2chicken legs, thigh and drumstick together
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 4cups extra-virgin olive oil
  • 4sprigs fresh thyme
  • 4cloves garlic
  • 5-6 baby Yukon Gold potatoes or any “C”-size potato, red or yellow, halved
  • 1bunch flat-leaf parsley leaves, rinsed, dried and roughly chopped
  • 1shallot, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 2tablespoons finely chopped Kalamata olives
  • 1½tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1tablespoon whole-grain mustard
Ingredient Substitution Guide
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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Make the chicken confit. Heat oven to 250. Season the chicken legs with salt and pepper, and place in a pan just large enough to fit them comfortably. Add oil, thyme and garlic, place on stovetop over medium heat and cook until the oil just begins to bubble.

  2. Step 2

    Transfer pan to oven, uncovered. Cook for 1½ to 2 hours, until the meat is easily pierced with a thin-bladed knife. (Adjust oven temperature up or down to make sure oil is just bubbling.) Allow to cool, then remove chicken from oil and place on a plate. Place in refrigerator until ready to cook. Strain oil, and reserve, covered, in the refrigerator. Chicken can be cooked a few days ahead of use.

  3. Step 3

    Make the potatoes. Heat oven to 425. Place the potatoes in a roasting pan, and toss with 2 to 3 tablespoons of the reserved oil. Arrange the potatoes cut side down on the pan, and place in the oven, until golden and crisp, approximately 40 minutes to an hour. Remove from oven, and salt to taste.

  4. Step 4

    Finish the chicken confit. Put 3 tablespoons of the reserved oil into a pan set over medium heat. When it shimmers, add the chicken, and cook, turning once or twice, until both sides are nicely crisp and brown, approximately 15 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature.

  5. Step 5

    Make the parsley salad. Combine parsley leaves, shallots and olives in a medium-size bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of the reserved oil and the mustard. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then toss the parsley and the dressing together.

  6. Step 6

    To serve, place a chicken leg and half of the potatoes and parsley salad on each plate.

Ratings

4 out of 5
343 user ratings
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Comments

Randy

Confit really needs the collagen-rich dark meat to succeed.
The slow cooking breaks down the fat and collagen leaving the meat succulent, moist and thoroughly cooked. Even die-hard dark meat haters will love confit. To attempt confit with chicken breasts would be a waste of effort and a mealy disaster. If you must have chicken breasts go with another recipe like one of Bobby Flay's excellent pan roasted versions. NYT has several good ones.

tal

I recommend the sous vide method (using an immersion circulator). The chicken comes out cooked to the perfect temperature and ready to be crisped either in a pan or under the broiler. There is no need to use 4 cups of olive oil and go through the cleaning and storing for later use. There are numerous video clips on sous vide cooking that can be found by googling the term "sous vide".

me

Nothing bad happens if you replace some oil with bacon grease and add a sliced onion to the pan. Also tossed some minced garlic and rosemary in with the potatoes for their last 15 minutes.

nana

Love this recipe. Especially since duck isn't readily available. My one question: There is quite of bit of chicken juice along with the strained oil. Should I remove that before I dress the potatoes/salad/fry chicken? I think I should. But advice would be welcome.

Bobby K

Doubled the chicken, trebled the garlic, it all fit nicely with the same amount of oil in our Dutch oven and came out spectacular. I mistakenly bought curly parsley, a forgivable transgression as it turned out.

Susan

I bought chicken confit from D’Artagnan. That eliminated a lot of the work. Cookedthe potatoes as recommended, but since I had no oil from doing the chicken, I added some thyme and garlic to my oil. I also added my lemon juice directly to my shallots and olives so that the shallots would soften a little bit. Just before serving I added the parsley and the rest of the dressing and mixed. An absolutely delicious combination of chicken, potatoes, and salad.

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