pork rillette canapes

Recently, I wrote a post for my cooking column at Digital Dads about my newfound affection for making a rillette. This simple, yet indulgent, dish is a wonderful comfort food and paired with some crusty bread and a few condiments makes a great meal.

After making it the first time and watching it rapidly disappear from the refrigerator I decided to make a larger batch since pork shoulder was on sale. Also, I still had plenty of duck fat left over that I needed to put to use. As the pork simmered in the bath of duck fat and homemade chicken stock I pondered what I was going to do with three plus pounds of rillette.

Well, as luck would have it, my son’s third birthday party was about a week away and I decided that I was going to be my normal outlandish self and serve a pork rillette canape to our guests. The big question in my mind was how would I present it?

I had picked up some apple butter and crusty bread after the first batch of pork rillette was ready, as I was hoping that something slightly sweet would help cut through the richness of the rillette. Fortunately, apple is always a good pairing with pork and the apple butter did exactly what I had hoped. So, with that in mind I decided to create an apple puree that would be the base of the canape.

About the same time I was reading a post about pork pate on Wrightfood, the same blog where I discovered the pork rillette recipe, and was immediately drawn to the idea of a red onion confit as way to top things off. I used port wine as my red for the recipe and the syrupy sweetness from the port and earthiness from the balsamic were a great choice.

Finally, I need to determine the vessel on which to serve these and my immediate thought was to make gourgeres out of some pate a choux dough, splitting them in half to make little sandwiches. However, the thought of making 50-75 puffs wasn’t terribly appealing considering this was just one of many things I needed to make for the party.

My next thought was to just make some crostini out of a baguette, but then while shopping for other party menu supplies inspiration struck in the frozen food aisle – Phyllo cups! Not only were they the perfect size, but they didn’t require any baking. Ten minutes out of the freezer and they were ready to be filled with the various layers.

The pork rillette canapes were quite a hit, even if they were well beyond the standard fare expected at a three year olds birthday party.

Apple Puree

Software

3 Apples (I used Braeburns)
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or extract)
2 sprigs of thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 cups apple cider (or water)

Assemblage

• Peel, core and dice the apples into 1 inch cubes
• Melt the butter in a large saucepan and saute the apples
• Add the honey, vanilla bean, thyme (leaves removed from stems) and salt; then cook for five to seven minutes
• Add the vinegar, then turn the heat up and cook until it has nearly evaporated
• Pour in the apple cider and bring to a boil and cook until the cider is evaporated
• Remove from heat and allow to cool; transfer to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and puree to desired consistency
• Refrigerate until ready to assemble pork rillette canapes

For the pork rillette and red onion confit recipes, please visit Wrightfood.