Recipe for Duck Rillette by Denis Delcampe from Le Tournant

The rillette is native to the Loire. This is where Baptist Lardeux and Philippe Mesnker are from, the former owners of the restaurant Le Tournant. Denis adapted this recipe after realising that the simpler a dish is, the better it often is. And then, isn’t cooking the art of disguising fat?

Ingredients:

The amounts depend on the number of people you’re cooking for. You can keep rillettes for quite some time, if stored well so usually the minimum amount of meat is 3-5kg.

1/3 pork belly, of which half should be salted pork belly

2/3 duck legs (with a large amount of fat)

11gr salt per kilo of meat

Some pepper

Spices such as thyme, bay leaf, rosemary, piment d’Espelette

Preparation method:

Cut the pork belly into big cubes. Heat a pan on very high heat and brown the duck legs and pork belly from all sides. Keep the fat.

Put the pork belly and duck legs in a saucepan with the fat, salt, pepper and spices to your taste. Bring everything to a boil and then, on very low heat, slow-cook for six hours.

If the meat has not become soft and moist by the fat, mix well and add a little more duck fat. Once cooked, the meat should fall easily of the bones.

Let everything cool for half an hour. Remove the bones from duck thighs and put everything into a food processor to fray out.

Put meat mixture in a container and add some fat from the cooking process, then mix so that everything is evenly moistened. Leave to rest in the fridge for 24 hours.

It’s ready to eat now. It tastes best with some fresh slices of baguette or sourdough bread.