When writing her latest cookbook, “À Table: Recipes for Cooking and Eating the French Way (Chronicle Books, $30), Paris-based Rebekah Peppler considered including a recipe for duck confit, the quintessentially French dish. But then she accepted the reality that duck confit, even in France, is a once-a-year thing.
Instead, she subbed in the far more affordable and accessible chicken thighs (seasoned the night before she plans to serve the dish), and voila: a decadent yet incredibly easy main course and crowd-pleaser. She makes this one all the time.
Chicken Confit
Serves 6
Ingredients
6 to 8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs (about 4 pounds)
1½ tablespoons fine sea salt, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
1 lemon, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, smashed, plus 2 garlic heads, unpeeled and halved crosswise
4 fresh thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
2 large leeks, tough outer layer and dark tops removed, halved, cleaned and cut into 1-inch pieces
5 to 6 cups extra-virgin olive oil
1½ cups green olives, such as Picholine or Lucques
Directions
Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and season with the salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl along with the lemon slices, garlic cloves, thyme, and bay leaves and cover with a lid or an upside-down dinner plate. Refrigerate overnight.
Heat the oven to 275 degrees.
Place the leeks and garlic head halves in the bottom of a large Dutch oven. Add the chicken, lemon slices, and herbs. Pour in the oil (it should cover the chicken completely) and cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid. Bake for 2 hours, then add the olives to the pot and return to the oven for 15 minutes more.
Preheat the broiler. Set an ovenproof cooling rack on a baking sheet and use a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken thighs to the rack. Broil until the chicken skin is crisp and browned, 5 to 8 minutes depending on the strength of your broiler.
Transfer the chicken thighs to a serving platter and use the slotted spoon to fish out the leeks, olives, garlic and lemons and scatter them around the chicken. Serve warm.
— Rebekah Peppler, “A Table” (Chronicle Books, $30)
