Friday 12 September 2008

Rillette Love


I’ve had a soft spot for rillettes for some time now, ever since my father and I purchased a glut of the goose variety from humble Intermarche in Maurs la Jolie and ate them on a misty picnic off the bonnet of the 2CV, (next to an impressive castle, which frankly just compounded my view that I’m destined to stalk the tapestried corridors of one of those beauties, imperiously ordering suckling pigs from my beleaguered chefs, after making a splendid aristocratic marriage).
Until yesterday, I’d never actually made my own rillettes, but they were so fabulous that I might now do it on a weekly basis. Rillettes are one of those lovely French things, which vary slightly from region to region but always hold true to the basic principles of cooking meat really slowly with salt and fat. Nutritionist’s dream, I say. Apparently, the rillettes of Tours and Anjou are referred to as ‘brown jam’, a fact which convinced me yesterday of their acceptability as a breakfast food - I was essentially eating toast and jam with my coffee. Mine were of Rabbit, which brings me to the other trend of my week: strangely alliterative foodstuffs.
It all began with rabbit rillettes, but before I knew it, radicchio, rosemary and red wine risotto appeared with some smoked pork belly, (psychedelic food, but it looked so pretty) and crab and cockle chowder transformed some crab stock from the freezer into joy in a bowl. I’m going to try extra hard to vary my consonants next week, it is becoming ridiculous.