Six months chilled with the cap intact; ten days once broken.
On the palate
Gamey, herbal, rich but cut by the wine's acid. Textural, not smooth.
Where this dish comes from
Rillettes are the Loire's answer to confit — Tours and Le Mans have argued about the better version for three hundred years. Rabelais, a Touraine man, mentions 'brune confiture de cochon' in the sixteenth century, which is probably the earliest written sighting.
The principle is identical to confit and to English potted meat: cook the protein in fat until it surrenders, pack it in its own fat, and let the fat cap do the preserving. It is the household technique that let a single pig feed a family through a winter.
Rillettes de Tours holds a protected label. In modern cooking the standard-bearer is Fergus Henderson at St. John, whose nose-to-tail philosophy made potted and preserved cuts fashionable, and Ludo Lefebvre and Daniel Boulud both keep a version on their bar menus.
How we make it
Two forks, always. A stand mixer or food processor emulsifies the meat into pâté; a rillette should be threads you can see, loosely bound by fat.
The wine goes in early and cooks out entirely. It is there for acidity, not flavour — without it seven hours of fat reads as heavy.
Fat-poach, shred, seal
7 hours
01Shoulder cubed and cured four hours in salt, juniper and thyme.
02Poached seven hours in pork fat with white wine, garlic and bay.
03Shredded warm with two forks — never machined — and beaten with its own cooking fat.
04Packed and sealed under a two-centimetre cap of clarified lard.
At room temperature, thickly on toast, with cornichons and mustard.
THE INGREDIENT LEDGER
Every defining ingredient, named: who grew or caught it, where, when it was taken, what it has meant to the people who kept it, and what it does for you.
Free-ranging wild boar
Winter cull, December 2025
Farm / fishery
Managed cull by licensed hunters, field-dressed within the hour
Region
Texas Hill Country
History
Rillettes are Touraine's peasant genius — tough cuts cooked to threads in fat, potted, and eaten all winter with bread and cornichons.
Why it is good for you
Wild-foraged meat is leaner and higher in iron than farmed pork, with a better fatty acid profile.
Nutrition, roughly
Per 100 g: 160 kcal · 28 g protein · 4 g fat · iron, zinc, B12.
Juniper, black pepper & bay
Berries October 2025 · pepper harvest 2025
Farm / fishery
Wild juniper; single-origin Tellicherry pepper
Region
Nordic uplands · Malabar coast, India
History
Juniper with game is a hunting-camp pairing older than France; Tellicherry pepper travelled the same routes that made Venice rich.
Why it is good for you
Piperine improves absorption of other nutrients; juniper aids digestion of fatty meat.
Nutrition, roughly
Negligible.
Nutrition figures are typical values for the ingredient itself and are given as a guide, not as a dietary claim. Harvest dates refer to the batch printed on your lid.
