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.

Brian Polcyn is the former chef/owner of Forest Grill and Five Lakes Grill, among other Detroit-area restaurants, and he is a professor of charcuterie at Schoolcraft College in Michigan.
Michael Ruhlman has written and coauthored many bestsellers, among them The Soul of a Chef, The French Laundry Cookbook, Ratio, and other books. He lives in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife, Ann Hood.
A very inspiring collection of recipes from Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman. The collection not only highlights the unique and specialized craft of charcuterie but also demystifies classic and modern techniques that make beautiful and delicious terrines, pâtés, and confits.--Eric Ripert
Brian Polcyn is a scrapper! A great chef and teacher as well. He can turn 'scraps' to gold like a wizard. Brian and Michael have put together a book of craftsmanship, creativity and fun. Making charcuterie as easy and understandable as one potato, two potato...terrine (p. 86)! (And I should know, because I took his class.) Thank you both for the inspiration.--Chef David Burke
A hymn to extreme scrumptiousness. A how-to for making some of the greatest, trickiest foods you will have ever have the privilege to put in your mouth. I love this book. It is a food fanatic's dream. I want to make every recipe in it.--Bill Buford, author of Heat
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.
Although I have formed my culinary style on progressive thinking cuisine, I find the most inspiration within the technical expertise required to execute traditional dishes. With Chef Polcyn's knowledge and experience in crafting these classics and Michael Ruhlman's ability to articulate the magic into words, this book shows us the timeless nature, both past and future, of the art of charcuterie.--Grant Achatz
An essential, much-needed book about a branch of gastronomy that has been amazingly neglected in America until recently, even by the best-known culinary schools.--Jacques Pépin, from the Foreword