Rillettes and pates

Was gifted with three large pig heads last week and cooked them down until the meat is "potroast tender" about 24 hours. Separated and chilled the meat, chilled the broth..took off the thick layer of fat and will use to fry chicken.....boiled down the jelled stock until now it's jelly.

So rillettes....chopped the pig meat fairly finely, then mixed into melted leaf lard adding black pepper, grey salt, allspice, whole bay leaves....next time will powder them, ground ginger, cloves...next time will leave out, thyme, granulated <penzey's> garlic, nutmeg and lots of orange zest.
Steralized various canning jars and filled with the rillettes, topped off with 1/2"+ of rendered liquid leaf lard and then topped with a canning jar lid....did not process any further but put them in the fridge. Should last for numerous weeks if not months.....

Watched a friend make pate with pork shoulder, chicken livers, fat back, spices, parsley thyme, garlic slivers, toasted hazelnuts, brandy. Only fatback on the bottom/actually top......6-1 ratio of fat to meat. Cooked to 130* about 1.5 hours at 350* in a water bath. Foil sealed pans, then weighted and left over night.
No eggs, no panade actually of any kind, no onion, it's a much lower ratio of fat to meat than I've been using.
Hmmmm.....
thus far, my country pate has pork shoulder, back fat and pork liver about equal amounts, eggs, white wine, brandy actually I use Grand Marnier alot,
onions, garlic, spices, herbs, covered wholey in sheets of back fat and baked to 145*, in a water bath.....parchment then foil.

Pork liver Pate is ground and sieved (ugh....) cream/flour/pork broth panade,
eggs, loads of orange....it brightens the mix.....again surrounded by sheets of back fat.

Chicken liver pate, butter, livers, orange zest, orange juice concentrate, onions, currants......most people (including alot of chefs) do not recognize it as chicken livers but think it's more extravagant....that's what a ton of butter will do for you.....creamy not baked.


So, my question is what spices do you put in rillettes or pates? Do your techniques or ingredients vary from those mentioned?
It's interesting to read that leaf lard is used for rillettes, instead of just the other backfat lard.

AHA.....For rillettes I use quatre epices....
so Grigson's Charcuterie book has quatre epices as: " Quatre-epices is a French blend of four spices-pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and either cinnamon or ginger- for use principally in charcuterie. It is not on general sale in England or America, but if you have not brought any back from France you can quite easily mix our own, and keep it in a well-lidded jar:
7 parts black pepper, 1 part each of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon.

Every big spice merchant has his own blend, so the proportions can vary thought pepper is always the main element. Larousse Gastronomique gives this: White Pepper, 125 grams; Cloves, 10 grams;ginger30 grams; nutmeg 35 grams

why a morter and pestle instead of a coffee grinder?
one of the chefs I've been testing pates with says to rehydrate the morels....I just threw them in the mix after crushing them.....thoughts?

why do you think leaf lard rather than just lard was called for in rillettes?
have you ever heat packed them so that the rillettes would be shelf stable?
if so how? Certainly there is canned meat on the market so why not seal the rillettes since they are already cooked to tender, thus making room in the oh so small refrig space.

black over green....
So what would your spice mix be tincook?

there were different variations of quatre epice between the books.

I asked a friend that worked with several French chefs prior to adding orange zest to the rillettes, thinking even the dried zest would shorten the life of the meat....it too adds a nice note. all the spice mixes are warm....
interesting, so would vanilla be too weird?

The reason I'm thinking about shelf stable is the quantity being made is so much and so rich that I'd like to use it rather than lose it.

Absolutely I have access to leaf lard....have about 20#+ rendered in the freezer.....thought it would only be used for pie crusts but am glad to find another place it's good for...but there's a texture difference between leaf lard and back fat...still working out why one is better than another for different applications...it's the why thing.

foie and pate are canned....makes sense that rillettes could be too....it's just the how part that's got me stumped.

more saturated, so leaf lard is hard white and has alot of fiber running through it, back fat appears more liquidy when rendered. Don't remember college bio-chem getting into fat details, but that was so long ago and so far away.......
Leaf lard does not carry piggy flavor, so it appeared to be a better match with sweet pie crusts....but as rillettes are meat, in this case pork heads what would it matter which fat is used to preserve it?

I thought lardo was preserved back fat ala Italian. Nope not made it yet....
For the past 4+ months I've been butchering pigs and using all the pig...well sometimes the skin gets pitched and I'm still working out what the heck to do with the ear....supposedly there are ways to cook/bread/fry but usually I leave them on the heads while they boil away for pate de tete or rillettes or cabeza tacos.

Lots of fat on these piggies CC.....Kuan posted one of the pics of the last 400# tammworth with the exceptional backfat on the photo site.

Got loads of feet/shanks too....wanna make zamponis.

nope meatloaf doesn't count because it's not weighed down, and normally pate does not have tomato base sauce slathered all over the top.....last time I checked meatloaf is not set in a water bath either. Do you put liver in your meatloaf.....or celery/peppers in your pate?

Got a windfall of dehydrated tart cherries and have been serving them with the pates/rillettes.....yummmmy! coarse mustard, funky pickled vegs....add some cheeses, crackers/breads and dinner does not get any better than that.

The French split the foot/shank and slather mustard and bread crumbs on and bake.
The Italians, take the bones out of the fresh leg/foot and stuff with farce the ones I've seen have pistachios....which do not interest me, they just get mushy....but sew them shut....went and got some curved needles and 100% cotton thread from the sewing shop (almost made the semstress sick, well she asked......;)) Now supposedly it's tough boning out the foot without cutting through the skin. My buddy at An American Place cooks his feet then bones and stuffs them.

Got tons of bellies in the freezer too....it's really surprising to see how small the tenderloins are on these pigs....makes you wonder how big the pigs are when the tenders in the stores are .75-1.25 #.

Still working on the rib thing, right now I'm stripping out the meat and just leaving the spine and ribs attached....looks very Fred Flinstone when we have BBQ ribs.

would that be served with pomme de terre and haricot verte?

....

um my favorite with aioli and extra red sauce.....

we have some exceptional German butchers in STL....G&W is the first that comes to mind. Smoked Liverwurst that is the "gold standard"....this stuff is incredible, until a few weeks ago they would sell it in stomach pouches tied off with string. Their head cheese also is amazing....various wursts....

But I've never seen stuffed foot in the shop....what part of Germany and what kind of farce is in a German foot? spicing?

That's what info I'd love to know....how different countries make their pates/farce/sausages....spicing, panades, how they cook them....waterbath/casing/weighed.......various grinds.....

nah, just come visit me in STL.....we'll spend a day breaking down a pig and cooking him up. Guess it's just the way I learn.....pornography at it's best, there is no substitute for self directed, self-motivated learning....unless it's with others.....guess that would be the orgy part.
Um....this would be the cult part of cooking for a living?

Ok...you guys are going to get a kick out of this, one of my dear friend's quit her job and moved to London to go to the Cordon Bleu Pastry Program (she was a food writer/tech writer).....this was her last e-mail....titled "ST. John's"

well i ate there. but at their sister restaurant, st johns bread and wine.

was superb. honestly. brilliant. i had a salad with little gem lettuce, spring onions, mint and lemon oil, incredible roasted shallots with mint and mustard and a creamy goat's curd that was a bit like fresh ricotta. incredible. and a beautiful dish of zucchini and broad beans in a luscious butter, parsley and mustard vinaigrette slow cooked. divine! tom had jellied pig's head and quail with aioli. barf.

he almost ordered the crispy pig's cheek but they sold out. then he talked about the ox heart and just by the look on my face decided not to order that.
i think he's your man


What can I say, so many of my food writing friends are totally grossed out when i talk about breaking down pigs or using bits and pieces or making crusts out of leaf lard, for heaven's sake Julie rillettes?.....so glad you guys are here.