Most foods can be improved with a little bit of oil, but confiting takes things a step further. By gently poaching fish, meat or vegetables in oil (or animal fat) slowly over a low heat they become rich, meltingly tender and (as you can probably guess) incredibly tasty. It’s a traditional French cooking method, and originally referred to anything preserved by slowly cooking it in any liquid; fruits, for example, would be confited in sugar syrup. Nowadays, however, it tends to refer to food that’s been slow-cooked in fat and not necessarily aged or stored.

The most well-known confit dishes are duck and goose legs, which are cured in salt before being cooked in rendered down duck or goose fat. The resulting meat falls off the bone and is rich enough to stand up to other powerful, robust flavours. Confit egg yolks are becoming more and more common on restaurant menus, too, and fish (both oily and white) also suit this style of cooking very well.