Among many dishes that make me miss France are rillettes. Anytime A and I come ‘home’ for Xmas or summer, we will be treated with one or two precious jars of the red Bordeau Chesnel rillettes de porc. Rillettes just go great with freshly baked baguettes. I feel like finishing a jar at one go, which I definitely shouldn’t.

To me, rillettes quite resemble some braised pork dish that we have in Vietnam. The flavor is delicious yet pure.

I looked for recipes online first of course. Almost all recipes require different types of herbs and cuts of meat. However the flavor comes to my mind is much less complicated. I’ve decided to cook it my way with much simple ingredients. The list found on the Bordeau Chesnel website just says:” porc 100% français, sel, poivre, tout simplement”. So that was exactly what I used to recreate the dish.

There’re only two points to bear in mind: first is to “poach the meat in fat very slowly so the fat renders completely“; second is to cook on low heat.

RILLETTES DE PORC

500g shoulder pork (cubed)

350-400g leg meat (cubed)

100-150g lard (fat) (cubed)

1 yellow onion (chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (optional) (minced)

Water or vegetable/ meat stock enough to cover the meat.

Pepper and salt to taste.

Method:

• In a stock pot, melt the lard on medium low heat until you have at least a table spoon of fat. 
• Add in onion and garlic, stir until they are soft and have fragrant smell. It probably takes 2-5 minutes.
• In the same pot, brown the meat on medium high heat. Don’t need stirring but turning the meat to brown all sides.  Seasoning with salt and pepper.
• Add water or stock as you like, but the water level should only be enough to cover the meat as you will cook until all the moisture is removed and the rillettes deepen in color.
• Bring this to boil, reduce the heat to low. Cover the lid. Slowly simmer for 2-3 hours (yes 2-3 hours until the meat can fall apart when you stir with a spoon and the broth is clear)
• At this point you can taste and add more salt and pepper or any other herbs.
• Transfer the meat into a food processor/ blender to mash the meat and make it easier to spread on bread. 

Make sure the jar you want to store rillettes is hot, spoon in the rillettes to make sure there is no air pockets in the jar. Refrigerate rillettes in an air tight jar.

Store bough rillettes have fat on top to seal air and make them last longer. You can do the same by rendering some lard and pour it over the already set rillettes. Or just don’t bother because my rillettes actually stay alright for a month now without any seals.

Any time I cooked rillettes, I experimented by adding some different herbs and stocks but my bf always prefers the most simple version of salt and pepper only. To us, the rillettes taste extremely authentic 🙂 (as compared to our favorite Bordeau chesnel rillettes)

The homemade product, without a doubt contains much less fat than the store bought version, so it might feel less spreadable but the feeling of making your own rillettes is absolutely rewarding and there’s no guilt in eating a whole jar. They are wonderful to serve with bread.

Enjoy!