Pork Confit - Part 2: The Quintessential Charcuterie Experience

In Part 1 of this recipe, as I hope you saw, we made a classic brine and soaked our pork for 48 hours to impart flavor and moisture. In part 2, we will slow roast the brined pork and then serve it very simply, as a classic Charcuterie plate.

First a definition for those not familiar with "char-koo-ter-eee" from Wikipedia: "Charcuterie (from either the French chair cuite, cooked meat, or the French cuiseur de chair, cooker of meat) is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as sausage and confit primarily from pork. The practice goes back to ancient times and can involve the chemical preservation of meats; it is also a means of using up various meat scraps. Hams, for instance, whether smoked, air-cured, salted, or treated by chemical means, are examples of charcuterie."

Since the traditional method for cooking our pork confit would be to cover it completely in duck or pork fat, we'll have to adapt for the home chef. We'll wrap our meat in plastic wrap and then foil, and roast it in a slow oven which will get us very close to the product produced by the traditional method. After 4 hours at 275 degrees, pork is left to cool completely. This can only be sliced cold, otherwise it would fall apart, so it should be refrigerated overnight. Then we give it a very classic plating with mustard, cornichons, olives and pickled red onions. Throw in a couple slices of toasted dark bread and you are in Charcuterie heaven.