Morel Confit
One of life's great pleasures
Morel season is finished where I live, but it lingers gorgeously in this confit, a variation on Andrew’s method which in turn is of course a riff on the age-old method for preserving duck and other meat by slow-cooking it in fat and then storing it somewhere cool so the meat remains encased in solid fat, safe from microbial depredations for long periods. Pre-refrigeration, confit worked beautifully as a safe way to keep meat around all winter long. The reason we still do it today is that this method also makes food taste incredibly good, whether it’s duck legs or mushrooms.
Morels take exceptionally well to it, as do chanterelles—which I covered in this post. While I used my wonderful parm rind oil for the chanterelles, and pure duck fat for a recent batch, these morels got a different treatment. Olive oil made up the bulk of the fat, but I had a couple of others on hand and they added tremendous depth of flavor. And I also added more varied aromatics. The result is insanely tasty, and will work with just about any mushroom, including plain old buttons (though since they’re available year round I generally use this method for wild, seasonal types). Having said that, though, what this method does to humble button mushrooms must be tasted to be believed.
These variations show how versatile the technique can be, depending on what you have and where you might want to steer the flavors for future uses. They’re all stunningly good—I did it differently each time because I had different ingredients on hand. As long as you understand what matters in terms of flavor and safety, you’ve got freedom to play around. Later this week I’ll show you what I think is the greatest possible use for these preserved treasures.
