A French Favourite Starter – pork

Rillettes De Porc

Method

Olivier’s claim to fame in the kitchen is home-made pork rillettes, which is easy to make, keeps well and can be made in big quantities for a crowd.

For 1 kg of boneless pork belly (with plenty of fat) you will need ½ kg of back pork fat. Most butchers will remove the rind and bones for you and you will need to cut the pork belly into strips as for gravy beef and the pork fat must also be cut in small pieces. Rub the meat well with salt first.

You will also need:

125 ml of dry white wine

10 peppercorns crushed,

8 juniper berries, bruised

3 bay leaves, a crushed clove of garlic, a dozen thyme sprigs made into a bouquet garnet

¼ tsp cinnamon.

The pork will shred well with two forks if you cut the pork into thick strips where the bones were taken out and then again into smaller shorter strips of meat. Place everything except the wine into a covered oven dish, add two soup ladles of water and plunge the bouquet garnet into it. Bake in a slow oven, no more than 150C for four hours. Taste the pork and, add more salt and pepper if necessary. By this time the meat should be very soft and swimming in its own limpid fat.

Rillettes are bland if not seasoned well. Sieve contents through a wire sieve into a big bowl, and well drained to allow the fat to filter through. Use forks to pull the rillettes until they are finely shredded rather than a pate consistency.
Store in earthenware pots, preferably, and seal with melted pork fat and refrigerate. Remove before use to allow the rillettes to soften.

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