Rabbit Rillettes with Duck Liver
Appetizers Christmas Recipes Rabbit Duck and Goose
Finally finished! Now I can relax. I hope you haven't left for caroling yet, I want to wish you a wonderful vacation, happy holidays, and hope to hear from you soon!
I haven't had much time to cook in the last few days, so I prepared 3 dishes at once. I confited 6 rabbit legs, of which 4 I transformed into this rillettes and 2 I covered with fat to serve tomorrow with braised cabbage. The remaining duck liver (about 250 g) from the rillettes I prepared in a small terrine following this recipe, only I added some dried apricots soaked in cognac and roughly chopped pistachios in the middle. So 3 in one go.
I've posted a quick and elegant rillettes before, another affordable one, but here's a luxury version. I used rabbit meat, but instead of using the confit fat to make the spreadable paste, I used fatty duck liver. A bit eccentric, but hey, Christmas comes once a year!
Ingredients
Rabbit Confit
1 rabbit cut into pieces (approx 750 g rabbit meat; I used farm-raised rabbit)
1 kg duck fat
3 tablespoons coarse sea salt
1 dried sprig of thyme
3 garlic cloves
ground black pepper
Rillettes
200 g duck liver (cleaned of veins, membranes and any discolored areas)
3 tablespoons cognac
3 pinches of ground nutmeg
sea salt, black pepper
How to prepare rabbit rillettes with duck liver
- Sprinkle the rabbit all over with coarse salt and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until the next day.
- The next day, take out the rabbit half an hour before preparing and shake off the salt. Sprinkle with crumbled thyme and black pepper. Arrange the meat pieces side by side in a deep dish. Cover the meat with melted fat. Place the garlic cloves between the meat pieces.
- Put the dish in the oven at 90C until a fork inserted into the meat shows it coming off the bone easily. This process took me 4 hours, it's good to check from time to time.
- When done, remove the meat from the fat and let it cool just enough to handle. Pull all the meat off the bones and shred it. I got 350 g of rabbit meat.
- Take the duck liver out of the refrigerator and leave it at room temperature for 10 minutes. Cut it into cubes.
- Put the meat shreds together with the liver pieces in a food processor and pulse briefly (just 3 seconds) to homogenize the mixture.
- Season the mixture with sea salt, black pepper, nutmeg, 1 tablespoon of cognac and mix gently by hand.
- Choose one or more oven-safe dishes for finishing the rillettes. Put the mixture in the dishes (I used a single dish). Drizzle the meat with the remaining cognac. Cover the dish with aluminum foil (don't let it touch the meat!) or a lid.
- In a baking tray, put a layer of newspaper on the bottom. Place the meat dishes, add hot water (as hot as tap water) up to half the height of the dishes.
- Bake at 100C for 1 hour (for one dish) or 40 minutes (for 3-4 smaller dishes).
- Remove the dishes from the oven and lift the foil. Put plastic wrap on the dish, place a cardboard cut to the shape of the dish on top, then place a bag filled with something heavy (salt, beans, pebbles, etc.). Refrigerate for at least 24 hours. It's better after 2-3 days in the fridge. Serve at room temperature.
- If prepared in multiple dishes, serve directly from them. If prepared in a single dish and you want smaller portions, take out as much rillettes as desired and let it sit at room temperature to become spreadable. Shape on a plate using a pastry ring. Level well. If available, pour foie gras fat on top (from step 8 of the foie gras terrine recipe). Decorate with gherkin slices. Serve with toasted bread.
