When I talk to my mom on the phone, we always make sure to share good things that we cooked since we last talked. Recently, she told me that she had been confit’ing (honestly, this word doesn’t work very well in the English tense/aspect system) chicken breasts in olive oil, and that it was delicious. I was hooked immediately. I have confit’ed duck before, albeit in fat, but never chicken. In olive oil! This was promising. So my mom sent me the recipe. I’ll link it here, although it is in Danish, and, I have to say, not particularly well explained. I’m sure there are similar recipes out there in English. If not, let me know, and I’ll happily translate this one.

The recipe calls for confit’ing a whole chicken, but I wasn’t about to go all in on something unknown and risk wasting my precious organic chicken. So (one) chicken breast it was.

I started making this on a Saturday morning when I was frantically trying to finish the discussion section of an academic paper. The smell of chicken and aromatics spreading throughout the apartment was a great motivator to get as much as possible done before lunch time, so I’d be able to savor the meal.

I cooked it the chicken breast low (100 degrees celsius) and slow (around 3 hours) in a pot with olive oil, half a lemon, garlic, salt and fresh thyme and rosemary. I reduced the cooking time from four hours, which was the suggested time for a whole chicken. However, three hours was clearly too much, as the chicken ended up somewhat dry.

Nonetheless, it was super flavorful. I served it with wholewheat spaghetti tossed with olives, capers and sun dried tomatoes. The flavors were great, so I’m excited to try this recipe again with a shorter cooking time.