PORK & DUCK RILLETTES + PICKLES
my spin on the classic French recipe.
Hello!
Welcome back to How I Cook. If you’re new here, or you’re coming back for the 100th time, it’s great to have you! Don’t forget to check out the recipe index for all of the old issues and recipes!
This week we’re taking on our first homemade charcuterie - rillettes! It’s without a doubt the easiest of them all and a great place to cook on a lazy sunday. Are terrines and homemade charcuterie up your alley? Let me know down below in the comments.
A really lovely album this week too!
Cheers,
B x
Tomorrow at 7pm GMT I’ll be going live on Substack with the one and only
! We’re going to be talking all things pancakes ahead of the big day, I’ll be demoing a classic french dessert, Nicola will be whipping up some souffle pancakes and we’ll be having a big ol’ chat and answering your questions. You’ll need the substack app to get involved - just log in around then and you should get a notification to come and hang out. Set your alarm!HOMEMADE CHARCUTERIE
It’s worth noting at the top of this issue that this is a very simple recipe, masquerading as a fancy pants plate. Before you take on a country style patê, a chicken liver parfait or even the mighty patê en croute, knocking up a rillette is a really good way to gain some confidence. Rillettes is very simple. Take some meat, add salt and a few aromats and then cook it in its own fat. The French love a good confit as a means of preservation, it’s a very tasty way to make meat last much, much longer in the fridge.
Ordinarily, you’ll find rillettes packed into little jars or set into a large bowl and served by the scoop. I wanted to show you that you can make your rillettes look a bit more polished and fancy by setting it into a loaf tin and slicing. You can pretend you’re at a fancy wine bar and show off a bit.
MEAT
You can technically make this with any meat, but pork and duck are the classic. The pork is the workhorse, packed with fat and rich flavour and the two duck legs add a wonderful earthy flavour and a little texture to the final product. You want to make sure whatever you’re using has plenty of naturally occuring fat. Pork and duck both tick this box, but if you’re using chicken for example, you’ll want to pick up a jar of duck fat or add plenty of oil to the pan.
The ratio of meat to salt in this recipe is pretty important. The salt helps to cure and preserve the rillettes, so it can spend a few weeks in your fridge. You’ll need to add at least 2.5% of the weight of your meat in salt. This will keep nasty bacteria away and season the rillette beautifully. There’s a lot of fat in there and it’s served at room temp or cold, so you can get away with being quite heavy handed with the salt.
FLAVOUR
This is where you can have some real fun! As long you keep the ratio of meat to salt dialled in, you can play around with the flavours you add to the pan. Plenty of hard herbs like bay leaf and thyme as well as shallots and garlic will boost the savoury character of your charcuterie. Warming spices like cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg are classic and enhance the meaty, porky flavour and as we’re using duck, I thought it’d be cool to include a little orange zest. I’d not actually tried this before, and it was a home run, very cool!
SERVING SUGGESTION
This rillettes is very good on a slice of hot buttered toast, with cheese and crackers or served real fancy with a dollop of dijon and a little extra blood orange zest. You could also take a slice and sear it in a hot pan, top with a crispy fried egg and have it for breakfast (YUM). The rillette will hang out happily in your fridge for at least a couple of weeks. What with the high salt and fat content, bacteria is kept largely at bay, so don’t feel like you have to hurtle through it.
BREAD & BUTTER PICKLES
One pickle to rule them all. My desert island pickle has to be the bread and butter. Why are they called that? I haven’t got a clue, all I know is, they’re utterly delicious and dead easy to make. This is my go to formula, I added an extra fresh jalapeno this time around for a bit more oomph.
PORK & DUCK RILLETTES + B&B PICKLES
This will make a large portion of rillettes, enough for 10-12 slices
INGREDIENTS