Rillettes [ree-yet], noun: finely chopped meat, cooked in fat, and shredded into a paste-like consistency. Traditionally served as a cold spread on bread.
Rillettes are sometimes referred to as "poor man's paté," but made well, this dish is right up there with the best of them! Have you ever had rillettes?
Rillettes were originally a way to use up some of the less desirable pork cuts like the neck, shoulder, or hind parts and also preserve meat for later consumption. The raw meat is cut into very small pieces and cooked slowly in pork fat until the meat is so tender that it practically disintegrates. The meat is then mashed with some of the fat until it becomes a paste and served as a cold spread.
Alternatively, the meat and fat can be transferred to another container and allowed to cool. The fat will float to the top and solidify, forming a seal and preserving the meat inside. Kept refrigerated, the meat can be stored this way for several months.
Rillettes are traditionally made with pork, but any meat can be used. We've noticed that duck and rabbit rillettes have both become very popular in fine dining restaurants lately!
Here are a few recipes to try at home:
• Five-Spice Pork Rillettes from Gourmet
• Duck Rillettes from Serious Eats
• Rillettes de Paris from the Washington Post
Are you a fan of rillettes?
Related: Possible Trend Watch: Terrines and Patés?
(Image: Flickr members C'est moi! and Stu Spivack licensed under Creative Commons)
How to Cook Moist & Tender Chicken Breasts Every Time
Recipe: Thai Ginger Chicken Stir-Fry
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Red-and-Pink-Stripe...
Ellen's Thirties Style Small Space
Juan's Garage Turned Modern Guest House
Delicious with a few cornichons!
Love love love rillettes. One my favorite dinners is some toast, rillettes, cornichons and tomatoes. Add a dab of mustard and a glass of red wine, and you have a little piece of heaven.
The best rillettes I've ever had were at Bar Boulud - they used olive oil instead of duck or pork fat, and the rillettes were silky and light as a result.
http://tinyurl.com/c94tf5
Love them - especially the duck version.
I love Octavio Becerra's salmon rillettes at Palate Food and Wine (in Glendale).
http://mylastbite.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/palate-food-wine/
Duck rillettes are a Quebec specialty, what with great local duck producers. I like to get them as gifts for my hosts when I'm visiting out-of-town.
I'm also from Montreal, and duck rillettes certainly seems like the most common here, but there are all sorts available. I always buy assorted ones from the Salon des metiers d'art at xmas time from some local producers to give as presents. This year I recall getting duck, bison, boar, rabbit, and venison.
I've never had rilettes but they look like something I definitely plan to try!
I have never had it, but now I am willing to try. I have come to appreciate using every part of animals that I cook with, and undesirable cuts(or parts) sometimes have the best flavor (like chicken liver pate!).
We have bought a few different rillettes here in France, but I still prefer homemade (or butcher-made) cretons, a specialty of Quèbec, which is a spicier cousin to rillettes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretons
I was just wondering if cretons (which we grew up hearing our grandmothers call it, in our child minds, gaton) were rillettes. YUMMMMMMY.
I had duck rillettes at a local food demonstration.. not really a fan. It is so oily! I found the somewhat slimy texture off-putting. But it may be that I have just lost my taste for meat after a few years of hardly ever having it. To go from no meat to a locavore demonstration meal full of strong tasting meat like duck and boar was a bit of a shock...
pork shoulder (unluckily known as pork butt at the market!) rillettes are the best. one of the first things i learned how to actually cook when i was a teenager.