Pâté, Confit, Rillette

In Pâté, Confit, Rillette, Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman provide a comprehensive guide to the most elegant and accessible branch of the charcuterie tradition. There is arguably nothing richer and more flavorful than a slice of pâté de foie gras, especially when it's spread onto crusty bread. Anyone lucky enough to have been treated to a duck confit, poached and preserved in its own fat, or a pâté en croute, knows they're impossible to resist.

And yet, pâtés, confits, rillettes, and similar dishes featured in this book were developed in the pursuit of frugality. Butchers who didn't want to waste a single piece of the animals they slaughtered could use these dishes to serve and preserve them. In so doing, they founded a tradition of culinary alchemy that transformed lowly cuts of meat into culinary gold.

Polcyn and Ruhlman begin with crucial instructions about how to control temperature and select your ingredients to ensure success, and quickly move on to master recipes, offering the fundamental ratios of fat, meat, and seasoning, which will allow chefs to easily make their own variations. The recipes that follow span traditional dishes and modern inventions, featuring a succulent chicken terrine embedded with sautéed mushrooms and flecked with bright green herbs; modern rillettes of shredded salmon and whitefish; classic confits of duck and goose; and a vegetarian layered potato terrine.

Pâté, Confit, Rillette is the book to reach for when a cook or chef intends to explore these timeless techniques, both the fundamentals and their nuances, and create exquisite food.

“"The recipes may require work, but the authors of this excellent volume take good care to thoroughly explain each step. Meat-loving cooks looking for a challenge will delight in this expert volume."”

Being an advocate of tradition for decades, charcuterie is my passion. In the book Pâté, Confit, Rillette one will have the opportunity to discover, understand, and master the art of the craft. The creative and delicious recipes take the techniques and tastes to a new height.--Daniel Boulud

Brian Polcyn is the former chef/owner of Forest Grill and Five Lakes Grill, among other Detroit-area restaurants, and a professor of charcuterie at SchoolCraft College in Livonia, Michigan.

Michael Ruhlman has written and coauthored many bestsellers, among them The French Laundry Cookbook and Ratio. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

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