Whenever we are in Spain our next door neighbour Tony will cook a meal for us, he goes to great lengths to cook something special and has emailed me to say we can look forward to 'rin ran' on our next visit. Now, I could google this of course but it would spoil the surprise, rather like sneaking a peak at Christmas presents, but I have to say I'm intrigued!
On our last visit Tony treated us to lamb rashers see post: lust for life, which were delicious. Our first course was rillettes which Tony has sent over from France. Rillettes are a preparation of meat similar to pate, originally made with pork, the meat is salted heavily and cooked slowly in fat until tender enough to be shredded then cooled with enough fat to form a paste.
Rillettes can be made from either pork, goose, duck, chicken or anchovies, I enjoyed this as a starter but actually I would be happy to eat rillettes with lovely toasted artisan bread, pickled chillies or cornichons and served with a good bottle of wine, as a main meal.
Rillettes de canard
Recipe
Serves 2
1 duck carcass, or 2 duck legs
200ml dry white wine
100ml water
Sea salt
Black pepper
1 clove garlic, crushed, peeled and chopped
1 pinch allspice
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
Cut the duck into manageable pieces and place in a saucepan
Add all the remaining ingredients, cover with a tight fitting lid and simmer gently for 1 hour 30 minutes, stirring frequently
Check the liquid level and add more wine if needed
By this time the duck meat should have seperated from the bones
Remove the bay leaf, thyme and bones
Shred the meat
Spoon the mixture into a pot or jar, top with any juices, cool and refrigerate
For the classic pork rillettes replace duck with skinned and boned belly pork.
The quantity for this recipe is only for two people, I would generally triple or quadruple the ingredients and store in sterilised jars in the fridge.
'Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing or wood carving or music'
-Julia Child
Love Donna xxxxxxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment