I love Rillettes ,

Alain Passard serves them on wholebread with fresh young turnip chips on top.

it will work as a canapé, a hors-d’oeuvre or in a sandwich with a slice of onion or other.

unfortunately the store bought stuff you find is either too fat, too salty or processed too hard, making the texture unappealing.

when I stumble onto a duck during my shopping after separating the fillets (grill, dry or smoke) and the legs (grill or confit) I’m left with the tenderloins and wings.

duck wings are depressing, you can’t decently serve them as a main course, the meat is outrageously tough and dry, even confit or slow boiled

so, with a little pork belly, you can recycle these in a Rillette that will ‘theoretically’ keep for a very long time

I say theoretically here because I’ve never really had the opportunity of seeing one of those little pots stored fo very long.

A little story goes with the recipe, one of my colleagues (who’s name will remain a mystery for his sake) had asked for a jar of 350g with the publicly endorsed perspective to enjoy it privately

brought the jar one morning around 9 discussed briefly on the making of the product until this sentence came out “hah ! this stuff is so enjoyable I could have it for breakfast with just a slice of bread”… guy grabs his car keys, rushes out, comes back a moment later with two fresh baguettes, opens the pot, grabs a knife, calls out softly across the office, “hey guys, Nounours has made Rillettes, wanna have a go at them ?” the rest is a little bit blurry . I got my jar back empty at 10.

for around 420g of Rillettes ( 1 big jam jar for family/party size use, plus one single serving small jar typically good for one sandwich)

• 200 g duck meat (wings meat or other hard to cook cuts)
• 300 g pork belly (the fat to meat ration will determine how fat your Rillettes will be in the end, I usually go for something rather lean, your mileage may vary)
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves (I mean it! just the leaves, don’t stuff branches in there!)
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp green peppercorns
• 1 tsp best brandy
• 25cl water

the recipe’s going to be extremely simple

cut meat into 2-3cm chunks remove skin of pork belly

simmer the whole lot in a saucepan for 4 hours

starting the 3rd hour, squash and stir the meat pieces every 1/4 of an hour with a wooden spoon

the water will eventually evaporate during the cooking process, that’s normal

you may add a little water in the end if not all the fat has melted or if you want to adjust the texture

4 hours is a long time for cooking, in the end, check it often, if you cut your meat small you may well get there earlier, use your judgment,

store in preserve jar, and sterilize it if you want to keep it.

since the preparation is already pretty devoid of bacteria, I don’t overdo the sterilization process,

I heat up the pots and caps for 15 minutes empty in the oven at 120°C, fill them quickly, and reheat the closed pot 120°C in the oven for another 15 minutes

no problems so far, but then again, they never really had the opportunity of aging

I usually cool them at room temperature overnight and put them in the fridge if I want to serve them fresh.

for that preparation I toasted two slice of my homemade sourdough bread (will get you the recipe one of these days) and spread the Rillettes on it