Confit

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈkɒnfiː/

Definitions

1. A culinary process in which food, often meat, is gently cooked and preserved in its own fat or, alternatively, fruits are cooked and stored in sugar syrup
2. A cooking technique where ingredients are tenderized and flavored by slow cooking in oil or fat, or where fruits are preserved by being cooked in sugar
3. A method of preserving meat by slow cooking it in its own fat to maintain tenderness and flavor ; a way of cooking fruit by simmering it slowly in a sugary syrup to enhance sweetness and preserve it

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "confit" is that it is the same word as "comfit," the old English term for a sweet made by coating a seed or nut in sugar, which English adopted centuries earlier. The two forms descend from the same Latin verb, "conficere," meaning to make, prepare or put together, which in Latin could describe mixing and preparing foodstuffs of many kinds. In French the past participle "confit" came to mean preserved food, and it was borrowed into English in its French form, which is why the spelling and pronunciation feel foreign next to its doublet. The French sense of preserved food gave the word its two main culinary meanings: meat slowly cooked in its own fat, and fruit simmered gently in syrup. The first is the more famous, most associated with duck confit from southwest France, where the preservative fat did the work that salt and cold once did. Fruit confit follows the same logic, with sugar taking the place of fat.

Synonyms: preserve, candy