Heaven.

Rillette, pork shoulder cooked in pork and duck fat until it shreds apart with barely a touch

Heart disease patients avert your eyes. This rillette, or a pork pate, isn’t for the fair hearted. Well, it shouldn’t be for anyone with a pumping heart. This succulent and fatty dish is cooked (drowned would be a more apt description) in fat and flavored with a heavy helping of garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and wine.

A vat of duck fat

But after slow cooking the pork cubes in fat for 2.5 hours, what emerges from the oven is a tender, juicy, flavorful piece of pork that’s easily broken down into a pâté by adding some of the cooking fat. The more you add, the creamier it gets.

Rillette, pork shoulder cooked in pork and duck fat until it shreds apart with barely a touch

This rillette dish will be served during our charcuterie buffet that will feed all the employees and students in the school. (I secretly want to take it home and eat it like apple sauce–straight out of the container and with a big spoon. Is that wrong? Yes.)

TIP OF THE DAY: Whenever you confit (or cook something in it’s own fat) a protein, make sure to bring the fat to a boil before roasting it. That’ll bring the oil to a higher temperature and cook the meat faster.