First things first – a 2 year gap between posts is pushing it a bit, I know. Lots has happened, some great, some good, some bad and some terrible. C’est la vie but still here and still cooking pizzas.
Continuing the French theme, I thought I’d chuck up the recipe for rillettes that I made for the first time recently. We’ve visited or driven through the La Sarthe region of France many times over the years and this region takes pride in their speciality – rillettes. It’s basically potted pork but don’t let the memories of godawful jars of the stuff on the supermarket shelves deter you – this is amazing stuff to spread on your baguette. And don’t think I haven’t thought of landing it atop a pizza – oh no, but I’ll certainly post back up if that works out.
There’s plenty of recipes out there, I don’t even have any insider knowledge on this one, I just looked at a few and decided to just keep it really simple; pork, chalottes, pepper (add salt if you’re a salt fiend). That’s it.
TLDR Method: Dice the pork & chalottes, chuck it all in a lidded casserole dish with veg stock for at least 7 hours on a low heat. The end.
I can’t end it there can I? Go on then, if you want to know exactly what I did (it’s not far off) then I chopped about 10 good sized chalottes quite fine (double that amount if they’re the rounded tiddlers) and bunged them in the pan on the hob at a very low heat. The casserole pan I have is fine on the gas hob – if you’re unable, then just very lightly fry the chalottes, they don’t want to colour up, you’re just gently sweating them off.
Pork: I used a large unsmoked gammon joint – the sort of thing you’d roast and feed at least 6 people with. Make sure there’s a decent amount of fat on it – I guess you could even go for a crackling joint. If you go too lean you’ll just end up with pulled pork (oh dear, how sad, never mind) – we need the fat to, err, line your arteries, no, taste good and allow spreadability onto bread from cold. I apologise if saliva is forming in your mouth right now.
Chop the pork into really quite big chunks, like 6cm cubed – don’t even try to cube them, that’s just an idea on chunk size. Leave all the fat on – I know, it feels weird doesn’t it but just trust me. I just sliced it like bread and then chopped up the bits. Bung that into the casserole dish with the chalottes, pour over about 500ml of veg stock, quick stir, pop the lid on and take it off the hob and into the oven at about 170 / 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Then drop the temperature to 100 degrees. Take it out and give it a quick stir every hour to two hours or so – you’ll get a feel for it. Take heed – it will look terrible until the end. You could be staring at a grey / vaguely pink mess and you’ll wonder if you should have roasted it or spent your money on something else. You’ll also be cursing me and this bloody website. Fear not, intrepid foodie, I got your back.
It took about 6 hours before my one and only attempt at this dish started to look anything like, and stirring at this point yielded the meat breaking up. Before that they looked like rubbery nasty things in juice – there should be quite a bit of stock kicking around for the first few hours, don’t worry, that’s good. I gave mine an hour on top but I reckon it could have gone more. I guess as you get near the end and you think it’s a bit wet or a bit dry you could just pop it on the hob or add water but don’t do that until you absolutely have to. I seriously nearly binned it after 3 hours, it looked pretty terrible.
After 7 hours then (or whatever you decide) arm yourself with a spud masher and knock ten bells out of it. It should be a little slack while it’s this hot, that’s good – the sort of consistency & resistance to a wooden spoon as, say, a risotto – quite difficult to stir.
Part-fill the sink with cold water, stuff the pan in there to cool. Give it one last thorough stir before putting it in the fridge (in the pan).
That’s it. Mine was a bit salty, so next time I think I’ll submerge the joint in cold water for a while before starting the process. Everyone’s different.
You’re going to want a really good baguette to go with that. I’ve done a few in the past with French flour with varying results but since you’ve put all that effort into the rillettes you might as well just nip down the supermarket (Lidl’s bread is pretty good) and nom your way through your potted pork. You’ll need a few people to help you, it makes a massive amount does that – and it’s a darn site cheaper than off the shelves in France, even the really good stuff is way more expensive than you can make yourself.
Just watch the old arteries, yeah? Bien.
