Rillettes de porc

Some rillettes, yesterday.  Not my picture; mine
frankly looked a bit anaemic but tasted amazing

Winter is a strangely contradictory time of year, isn't it?  Wracked with guilt for eating too much festive fayre over Christmas, the whole country collectively pretends to go to the gym and eat healthily in a miserable and half-hearted attempt to get fit, while our brains and bodies tell us to comfort-eat our way out of the doldrums!  I say, plump for the latter - start the diet when it's a bit warmer!

And so it came to pass that with a delicious roasted hock of pork - one of the great forgotten cuts, and terrific value for money - I thought I'd try my hand at rillettes.  The hock is a delicious but awkward cut; with a huge bone running through the centre, it can be difficult to carve it neatly. 

Having slow-roasted the pork for two and a half hours in tin foil, I drained and reserved all the meat juices before removing the skin (you could, of course, salt it and return it to the oven to make pork scratchings.  I'm not encouraging you - just suggesting it!)  Having carved enough meat for the Sunday roast, there was still plenty left on the bone, which I couldn't bring myself to throw away, and, remembering the delicious rillettes I once enjoyed with French bread in the south of France, I set about doing something about it.

You will need:

• A leftover pork hock bone (cooked) with plenty of meat left on it
• Juices and fat reserved from the pork hock
• Some scraps of fatty pork belly
• Salt and white pepper to taste
• Several hours to spare

Place the pork hock and belly pieces in a saucepan and cover with water.  Add the juices and fat that you drained off earlier, and leave the entire thing to simmer, covered, for an hour and a half, topping up with water as necessary. 

After a while, the leftover meat can just be flaked off the bone and the belly meat easily removed from the fat.  Set the meat aside, and return the pan to the heat.  Keep simmering until all the water has evaporated.  Mash the meat up with a fork, add a very generous shake of white pepper and salt, and spoon it into some ramekin dishes.  Pour over just enough of the hot fat in order to seal it.  Leave to solidify, and chill.

Rillettes are best served spread onto fresh, crusty bread and, I think it's safe to say, best when not eaten to excess.