Potted meat (rillettes)

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 1 kg 800 g, you will need:

• 1 1 kg belly (streaky) bacon (unsalted)
• 2 500 g ham
• 3 200 g lard
• 4 18 g coarse salt
• 5 4 g pepper
• 6 50 g lard
• Total weight: 1,775 grams

Times:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
35 min.	6 hours 15 min.	6 hours 50 min.

Step by step recipe

1	Remove the rind and any hard parts of 1 kg belly (streaky) bacon (unsalted), cut into pieces.
2	Cut 500 g ham into pieces.
3	Melt 50 g lard in a large pan over high heat.
4	Add the pieces of pork, and leave to colour a few minutes.
5	Turn the heat down to minimum and add the pieces of ham and 200 g lard.
6	Add 18 g coarse salt and 4 g pepper. Note that the good ratio is 12 grams of salt + 3 grams of pepper per kilo of meat. If you use a different weight of meat, you can calculate a new seasoning with this little calculator: Meats : grams Recalculate
7	Cover the pan and leave on very low heat for 6 hours.
8	After 6 hours, the meat will be reduced to a conserve.
9	With a skimmer or wooden spoon, mix the lot. The meat will fall apart into small shreds and form rillettes.
10	Mix until reaching desired consistency: not too much if (like me) you prefer to have bigger pieces in your rillettes, more if you prefer the rillettes smoother.
11	Put rillettes into jars, removing meat with a skimmer, and cover the top with a little lard. Leave to cool, then cover, then refrigerate overnight or longer. Share with friends with a good bread, and pickles or mushrooms in vinegar. The acid taste of pickles goes well the mildness of the rillettes, and if you also have a good red wine, then you will be kings of all the world...

Remarks

If you like to vary proportions, please try to respect: Half as much ham as fat pork (belly), 12 g salt + 3 g pepper per kilogram meat.
For the duck version, replace lard with duck fat, and ham with duck breasts. It's a very very good idea to use the fat from cooking a foie gras for this.

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