Confit Pork - Day 2&3

OK, I got on with the confit pork Wednesday and Thursday.... and today, tonight is the dinner. Decided to invite over some people to share it with ;-). Timewise I was unable to cut the time of the rendering, however, I was able to use less electricity and render a larger quantity, as well as making some rillettes...

Rillettes :
Originally made with pork, is a meat cubed or chopped, salted heavily and cooked
slowly in fat until it is tender enough to be easily shredded and then cooled
with enough fat to form a paste. The term rillette, perhaps refers to the final
product and its appearance when spread on sliced bread. Rillettes were
traditionally made with fatty pork belly or pork shoulder. The meat was cubed,
heavily salted, and cured for twelve hours. The meat was then cooked slowly over
low flames until very tender. That being done, the flesh was raked into small
shreds and blended with the warm cooking fat to form a rustic paste. Rillettes
could be stored in crocks for several days.

Fanks Wikipedia :-)

Anyway, that was just a by product. What happens is that when you ask the butcher for fat, there are still bits of meat on it. Don't cut that off, it actually adds to the flavout of the lard. But with my different way of rendering the lard (I'll explain in full detail when I do the whole recipe) in which I boiled the fat first, you basically end up making confit with those bits of meat. You then scoop out those bits, shred it with a fork, at some salt, pepper and fresh thyme, a little bit of the fat, et vóila, rillettes. Very yum. If you're really health conscious, forget about it, it's an artery clogger, deal with it...

So Thursday morning I brined the pork shoulder, it's in the fridge now until 1pm.

Again I add a few random pics, and a bonus one of Fudge....took it when we went for a walk at the sports fields today...