Pork Rillettes Makes 3 pints. Why this recipe. But first, what are rillettes? They are a rough country paté, which to an American’s eye will look like pulled pork, waiting for a barbeque sauce. To make rillettes, a pork picnic is slowly cooked for many hours, with additional fat, and varying aromatic herbs and spices. When cooked, the meat is shredded and packed in jars, with the fat in which it cooked. The herbs and spices vary greatly by recipe. Some recipes call for only the pork, fat, and salt and pepper, while others get more and more elaborate with their seasonings and aromatic vegetables. Rillettes are also made with duck, goose, rabbits, and game. Rillettes are very rich, as is any paté. And when you make them you make a lot, so you will want to preserve some for later use. Following the rillette recipe, are two ways to store rillettes. Read about storing the rillettes before proceeding to prepare the rillettes. This can help assure you will have what you need to “put up” (store) the rillettes once they are done. So why this recipe? They are a wonderful item to have on hand for hors d’oeuvres. Serve on toast points or crackers, with a cornichon. Time requirement: about 1 hour of your time to prepare the meat before and after it comes out of the oven. If your schedule allows, 8-24 hours for the meat to rest with a salt rub. Five hours in the oven. What you will need: 5 to 5 ½ pound picnic cut of a pork shoulder. As for American pulled pork, the ideal cut is the pork picnic roast. This is a cut that is flavorful and fatty, but does not provide attractive slices. Hence shredding it (pulling it) is the ideal treatment. 1 ½ teaspoon salt. 7-8 parsley stems A large hand full of fresh thyme springs. ¼ cup white wine. 9 whole cloves. 5 bay leaves. 5 allspice berries. 5 juniper berries. 1 teaspoon black peppercorns. 1-pound lard. A second teaspoon of salt. Plus another pound of lard if you are going to hermetically seal the rillettes. Cut back rind and fat cap on the top and bottom of the picnic roast. Rub the roast with the 1 ½ teaspoon salt. Then stud the top and bottom sides of the roast each with 2 cloves (that will be 4 cloves in all). Then pull back the rind and fat cap back to its original place. Place the parsley, thyme, and white wine in the bottom of a large oven proof pan, such as 4-5 quart enamored Dutch oven, that is large enough to hold the meat to come. Place the other dry spices: 5 whole cloves, 5 bay leaves, 5 allspice berries, 5 juniper berries, and 1 teaspoon black peppercorns in a sachet. Or wrap them in cheese cloth and secure them in a tight package with some cotton twine. Give the sachet (or cheese cloth packet) a few good whacks of a mallet to crush the spice berries inside. Place this in the Dutch oven. Place the meat on top of it all. Add the lard to the pan (it can be in one piece, it will melt). If time permits, place in the refrigerator 8-24 hours for the salt to penetrate the meat. Otherwise proceed. When you are ready to cook. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees F and place the pan in the oven for 5 hours. After 5 hours, remove the pan from the oven. Place meat on cutting board. Remove bones, outer fat cap and rind, from the roast. Allow it to cool so you can shred it with your fingers or by using two forks. As you shred the pork, discard any bone, grilse, or interior hunks of fat. If the shredded park includes long shreds, and it probably will, take a large knife and chop the shredded pork into shorter pieces. In the meantime, while the pork cools to the touch, separate juices from fat. The easiest way to do this is to pour the cooking liquid into a glass bowl. The fat will settle on the top. Then you can spoon off the fat from the top of the cooking juices into another container. Place the pork in a 3-quart sauce pan, add the fat. Stir in 1 teaspoon salt. And that’s it. Taste and adjust for additional salt and pepper. How to store the Rillettes. You can hermetically seal them in canning jars with a layer of fat atop the rillettes in the jar. Or you can process them in a hot water bath that vacuum seals the jars. A note about canning jars: they come with a two-piece lid. A flat top which sits over the jar top and a round rim that turns and tightens to keep the flat lid on the jar.
Hermetically Seal Rillettes The easiest is to have ready eight 1/2-pint canning jars that you have washed and sterilized in the dishwasher. Or wash and sterilize by boiling a few minutes in a pan of boiling water. You will also need another pound of lard that you have melted in a sauce pan on the stove. Fill each jar 2/3 way with rillettes then cover them with melted lard. Then apply the flat jar lid. Then apply the round ring to tightly to keep the flat lid in place. The lard will hermetically seal the rillettes and they will keep for months if kept in the refrigerator. When you want to serve the rillettes, remove them from the jar, but do not serve the fat cap that has set atop the rillettes. Use that fat to fry some potatoes or some other purpose. Alternatively, you may can the rillettes. Canning Rillettes Again, you will need ½ pint canning jars, about 6 of them. Sterilized them by washing in the sterilize cycle of your dishwasher. Or wash them and then boil them (for several minutes) in a pan of boiling water. In the meantime, you have made the rillettes, and you are keeping them warm over a very low heat on the stove top. In a small sauce pan, place the flat canning jar lids in hot water, just below the simmer. Have a large pot of water near the boil on the stove, one that can accommodate the canning jars to come. You will put the ½ pint jars, filled with rillettes, in this pot of water. Therefore, make sure it is tall enough to accommodate the rise in water level when you add the jars of rillettes to the pan. Remove the sterilized jars from the dishwasher (or pan of boiling water). Fill each jar (to ½ inch below the top) with rillettes. (There is no need to add extra lard, the caning process, not the fat, is going to seal the rillettes in the jar). Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean cloth. Remove a flat lid from its water bath. Dry it with a clean cloth and put it on the jar. Now tighten it down with the round ring. Working quickly repeat this with each jar until all the rillettes are in the jars. There can be no half or ¾ filled jars. Any left that will not fill a jar, place that jar in the refrigerator for immediate use. Place the full jars in the pan of boil water. The water must cover the jars. “Process” the jars (leave them in the boiling water) for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes remove from the water and set the jars on a towel laid out on the counter. In a few minutes you will hear each jar make a “ping” sound, that is the vacuum seal occurring. Whether or not you hear the “ping,” you can tell if the jars have sealed by touch. After the jars are out of the water bath 15 minutes, touch the lid on the jar. There should be no give in the lid: it should be a flat hard surface. If there is any give in the lid, the jar is not sealed: the canning process failed. But that’s ok -- the rillettes in the jar are still fine. Just refrigerate that jar and consume it first. Although by caning the rillettes they are self-steady (like a can of tomatoes) and can be kept in the cabinet, I store mine in the refrigerator. I remove them from the refrigerator a few hours before I want to serve them.