Learning Charcuterie
High on the Hog
“Wine is served after knife-work,” Taylor instructed. How disappointing I muttered, instinctively and immediately searching for the bar anytime I’m issued a nametag. But I was here to learn, and wine could wait until our group lunch at day’s end.
Competent with the rudimentary butchering of whole animals, the stone sharpening of various knives, the stuffing of sausages, and the aging of salumi, I’ll even concede there have been some years my prosciutto is edible. But I was wholly intimidated by the innards of terrines, and frightened by the darkness of liver mousses. Were the livers from birds who ate and drank and smoked with similar velocity? And who knows what mystery meats are buried inside a jar of rillettes?
A firm believer in learning from masters of their domains, I was over the moon to learn the artisanal charcuterie Fatted Calf offered classes, and specifically one focusing on terrines, mousses and rillettes. Established in 2003 by culinarily accomplished husband and wife team, Chefs Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller, Fatted Calf Charcuterie in Northern California produces handcrafted products using high quality, natural ingredients sourced from some of the finest farms in the world.
Quite simply, charcuterie is the preservation of meat, primarily pork and game birds, by employing techniques such as curing in salt or brines, smoking, potting in fat, sealing with lard, and even baking into pastry dough. The goal is to prevent spoilage from airborne bacteria, thereby extending the life of the meat; the autumn pig slaughter or bird hunt made into food to sustain through long winters and hedging against the possibility of barren early springs. Over thousands of years, charcuterie has transitioned itself from the rustic and life sustaining to the posh and soul enriching.
I’ll admit to tearing up in front of Fatted Calf’s stupendous meat case in Napa, and of being in awe of the selections at their San Francisco storefront. I’ll even cop to blubbering a bit when their book In The Charcuterie arrived on my doorstep. Ripped from its shipping box, the packing materials laid on the floor at my feet for hours as I paged through the book’s enticing recipes and admired its moody photos, evoking 17th century Dutch Baroque paintings.
And while their book had detailed recipes for terrines and rillettes and mousses and pâtés, each an integral part of the charcuterie’s larder, I remained skeptical of my skills, unsure of my ability to create products worthy of their high quality ingredients and the time necessary to prepare them.
I needed mentoring.
Each student, ten of us in all, was swaddled in a black monogrammed apron and stuck with aforementioned nametag. Standing under a wall of shelves lined with labeled containers housing a colorful palette wheel of spices, salts and curing powders, Taylor outlined the day’s recipes, starting us on pork rillettes. Giant stainless steel bowls of Boston pork butt was laid before us, cooked a day prior for several hours in spices and a gluttonous three-pound mixture of duck fat, foie gras and pork lard. The liquefied fat was strained away from the meat, and a thick gelée settled to the bottom of the container, the crème de la crème of fats. Taylor described this highly prized, dense gel as a precious golden jus, often fought over by butchers. He went on to explain the ratios of fat and salt are key to both preservation and flavor, while everything else (spices, choice of meats and cuts, addition of mushrooms, etc.) is window dressing; the literal lipstick on a pig. We shredded the pork butt by hand, gobbling up mouthfuls of the warm meat, the savory equivalent of midweek afternoon sex; its sway merciless, somehow indecent, richly decadent.
The Boston butt of pork is butchered from the high front leg and into the upper part of the pig’s shoulder. Most often used for pulled pork in B-B-Q joints across the American south, the Boston butt earned its name during colonial times, as New England butchers took the less prized cuts of pork, such as the shoulder, and packed them into casks or barrels called butts, for storing and transport on ships. This New England specialty cut became known as Boston butt, except ironically in Boston, where it’s referred to simply as pork butt.
Taylor was full of these meaty tidbits and stories, having worked at Berkeley’s Café Rouge. Hired to work in the kitchen, he wound up running the butchery, establishing a lifelong pursuit of producing charcuterie of caliber. I recall in mouthwatering detail the flavors of Café Rouge’s beef jerky made on his culinary watch, a thicker-cut, leathery slab of spiced meat against which all others should be judged.
We slowly incorporated more than a third of the Boston butt’s strained liquefied fat back into the shredded meat. It was absorbed at a snail’s pace, providing me enough time to make a meal from heels of baguette slathered with the rillettes; mix, eat, mix, eat. Already lousy with fat, a large dollop of the lardaceous golden gelée was then worked into the mixture, guaranteeing a smooth, creamy and luxurious texture. We refrigerated small ramekins from each bowl to test for a final seasoning, as cold foods need to be seasoned more aggressively than hot. Like drinking an iced cold Chardonnay, the flavors are more muted. We added a bit more salt before packing mason jars very tightly with the concoction, ensuring no air pockets existed where bacteria can form. Each jar was topped with a ladle of the liquid fat, forming an anaerobic layer before being lidded. Refrigerated, rillettes can be kept for several months and vastly improve in flavor after the first week.
Stoned in a pork and duck fat stupor, I steadied myself against a wall, watching my fellow students cube yet more pork fat, pork shoulder, bacon, and black trumpet mushrooms for our next recipe, a rustic terrine. The pig’s liver, having been soaked overnight in milk, was also chopped and added, along with a spice drawer’s worth of flavors; ginger, piment d’esplette, mustard seeds and nutmeg carefully measured.
My horrific xenophobic assumptions were yet again challenged when I realized three of my fellow students were born and bread Frenchmen. Like properly tying a chic scarf, or eating only one croissant without getting covered in flaky crumb, I wrongly assumed most French children are trained in these specific culinary preparations. Instead, each of these recent transplants to the Bay Area had no experience preparing pâté, terrine or rillettes, but was desirous of making a connection with the cuisine of their homeland.
And like all of my small-minded assumptions, they were incorrect: while the French may have perfected the terrine in the 16th century, it actually dates back thousands of years and was prepared by the Greeks and Romans who sold them in the markets. It was a favorite food of laborers, as it’s dense, nutritious and inexpensive, utilizing every precious scrap of animal. Indeed, I was struck by the conscientious frugality of Taylor, using every bit of meat and not wasting a dollop or a smear, the butchers’ ethos.
During the Middle and Modern ages, the fields were hunted for the terrine’s ingredients: boar, deer and wild game birds, such as partridge, pheasant and grouse lent their flavors of gamy rusticity. More contemporary, less frugal chefs will often layer in duck, foie gras and truffles.
A terrine is both a covered and glazed earthenware baking vessel as well as the meat pie that’s cooked within. The dish can be lined with either a fat or pastry, making it easy to remove, while baking in flavor and moisture. We were given sheaths of white caul fat, evocative of a huge spider’s web, with which to line our baking dish. This thin, translucent membrane, once a covering for a pig’s intestines, now served as the terrine’s lacy lingerie, keeping the loaf intact and eventually melting into the cooked meat. We layered in the chopped pork, back fat, offal, and mushrooms and wrapped it snug in the caul fat, trimming off the excess, like a macabre holiday present. We lidded our terrines and put them into a hot water bath, or bain-marie, which evenly distributes heat throughout the terrine while it cooks in the oven, but not allowing it to brown.
While I’ve been told that terrine will last a couple of days in the refrigerator, it’s doubtful it’ll linger that long; inviting friends to my table, I’m convinced it will be devoured it in one meal. Plotting the next day’s lunch, I envision this terrine, cut into fat slices like a meaty pound cake, coming to temperature on an old wooden board, served with tiny sweet and sour pickles, crusty day-old bread, grainy mustard, and large bottles of aged cru Beaujolais.
There is no such thing as ‘whipping up a terrine’. The meat needs a day to marinate, a day to assemble and cook, and a day to cool and allow the flavors to harmonize; a Bach concerto composed over many days. A labor-intensive, special occasion food, Taylor stressed the importance of making a game plan, gathering the best ingredients, and taking the time to properly construct it. Like building a boat, if you’re going to bother, it better be good. Or you’re sunk.
We began Fatted Calf’s duck liver mousse recipe, the day’s last, by melting rendered duck fat in a huge cast iron skillet and adding duck livers, which had been seasoned overnight. Once sautéed to a rosy pink, we blended into the livers yet more fat in the form of butter and the unctuous golden gelée before forcing the creamy mixture through a fine mesh sieve, ensuring cloudlike consistency. The final addition to this mousse fit for royalty? Heavy cream whipped to peaks, doused with good Armagnac and folded into the liver mousse, its hue fittingly the dark purple of nobility. It required only a cracker and a glass of red Burgundy, preferably one from a leaner year. Shamelessly, I licked the spoon clean.
With aching feet, redolent of meat, and hands and chins glistening with fat, the class sat down together for a late lunch. Platters of roasted pork with crackling skin, a clayware crock of Rancho Gordo cannellini beans spiked with tomato and pancetta, a gargantuan bowl of the duck liver mousse, and various sautéed vegetables filled our communal table. On my plate was only the smallest pile of crispy kale, but my glass was finally filled with wine.
“Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate…”
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Deuteronomy 21:18–21
Fatted Calf’s Duck Liver Mousse with Cognac Cream
Sautéed duck livers are enriched with butter and then exalted with Armagnac whipped cream to create a silky, sumptuous spread to be enjoyed with toast points, in a Vietnamese style banh mi or with the blinds drawn, au naturel, naked, straight from the crock with a spoon.
Makes one 6-cup terrine
2–½ pounds/ 1.1 kg prepared duck livers
2 tablespoons rendered duck fat
1-tablespoon sea salt
½ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon finely ground white pepper
½ teaspoon pink curing salt (optional)
½ duck gelée or 2 cups duck broth reduced to ½ cup then seasoned with 1-teaspoon salt
¼ cup Armagnac
12 ounces / 340 g softened butter
1-cup heavy cream
Season the duck livers with salt, black and white pepper and optional curing salt. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Melt the duck fat in a heavy sauté pan over medium high heat. When the fat begins to sizzle add the livers and sauté for about five minutes. They should be still rosy on the inside and yielding to the touch but not squishy. Turn out onto a platter to cool. Refrigerate, uncovered, for two hours.
Divide the cooked livers into 3 equal parts. Put a third of the livers into the bowl of a food processor and puree for 3 minutes. Slowly add a third of the gelée or stock and cognac followed by ⅓ of the butter. Process for another 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture looks very smooth. Scrape the puree into a mixing bowl using a rubber spatula and repeat with the remaining two batches of livers.
Mix the puree and taste for seasoning. Pass the puree through a fine mesh sieve or tamis set over a bowl by scraping small amounts over the surface of the sieve with a spatula or plastic bench scraper. Whip the cream to soft peaks, add the Armagnac and a pinch of salt then fold into the liver puree. Pack the mousse into an earthenware crock if you will be serving the mousse en terrine. Alternately, line a terrine with plastic wrap and fill with the mousse. Once thoroughly chilled it can be turned out and sliced. Keeps refrigerated for four to five days.
