Confit
A preservation method in which salted meat is cooked slowly in fat and then stored submerged under that fat.
Confit works by salt, gentle cooking and an anaerobic seal of fat. The meat, often duck, pork or offal, is lightly salted, cooked low and slow in fat until tender, then packed and covered with the strained fat. The fat excludes air and slows oxidation while the salt and the cook do the preserving.
In the Spanish larder this is the confitado tradition, seen in lomo de orza, where fried loin is kept under lard in an earthenware jar, and in the manteca preparations of Extremadura. Kept cool, a confit holds for weeks to months.
Confit belongs to the cooked charcuterie family rather than the dried one. It is a store-under-fat method, close kin to the French rillette and to the potted meats of the British tradition.