I love pork rillettes (love the duck kind too, but I've never made 'em). I first came across this lovely little country French dish when I was living in France. I've seen it described as sort of a chunky pate. I finally found a couple of recipes and then tweaked them out to my tastes. Now I have about 4 lbs of lovely rillettes and about a cup of the most heavenly rendered lard imaginable.

4 lbs fatty pork -- I used a shoulder roast, but country spareribs would work pretty well too.

1lb pork fat
salt
herbes de provence (I always get a blend that has lavendar!)
bay leaves
peppercorns
1/2 to 1 cup white wine (I used a pinot grigio, but any mild-ish white whine will do)

Cut the pork and the pork fat into 1 inch chunks. Salt it well -- some recipes call for 25 tbsps of salt, I didn't use that much but I was liberal with the salt. Maybe 10 tbsp altogether. It's important. Trust me on this. Sprinkle the herbes de provence over the salted meat/fat. Put it all in a container and stick it in the fridge at least overnight, but up to two days (I used a gallon freezer baggie. It was full to the brim).

When you're ready to cook, place the seasoned meat and fat into a roasting pan and roast at 375 for an hour. Scrape the browned meat and all the juices into a large crock pot (I needed a 6 quart for everything). Add peppercorns to taste...I think I used about 2 tbsp. Add bay leaves to taste (I used four). Add wine. Cook on LOW for 7-10 hours.

Scoop meat out from the rendered fat, and place in a large bowl. Shred, using two forks. Pack in ramekins and pour enough of the rendered fat over each one to dampen the meat well and leave a layer of fat on top when it cools. Cover and store in the fridge. Strain any leftover lard (liquid gold) and use it for cooking.

Eat. I love this rolled up in lettuce leaves. It's also nice to have some cornichons on the side.

Hah! I went back and actually looked at some of my recipes and what was actually said was that 25 TEASPOONS of salt wasn't enough. I think that we can extrapolate that 25 TABLESPOONS would be way too much.

The salt is important. Rillettes is a way of preserving the meat as well as cooking it. So you need salt. I just salted (and mixed) the cut up meat until it looked "right" to me...I didn't measure exactly, but given the amount of meat/fat I used, I'd guesstimate somewhere between 5-10 tablespoons of salt. The finished dish has that *umami* taste, a rich, savory saltiness, but it doesn't taste like it's drowning in salt.

sounds good, I have been interested in french cooking for a while.