Fatback for pâte/terrine

[SethG]

I'm planning to make a duck terrine, and the recipe calls for some fatback in with the meat, and also calls for it (or caul fat) to line the pan.

I see salted fatback in all the local grocery stores. This is no good, right? Or can I soak the salted stuff?

Thanks.

[Louisa Chu]

Is salted fatback cooked or treated in any way? If it's just fat with salt then just cook off a sample to taste for seasoning. Otherwise the general rule is 20g of salt and 6g of pepper for 1k of UNSALTED ingredients.

[SethG]

I think it is generally just fat with salt, uncooked.

I just spoke with a nice fellow at the estimable G. Esposito Pork Store on Court Street in Brooklyn, who told me that all fatback is salted. He also carries caul fat (yes!), so I'm going there in the morning.

Is he right about the fatback? James Peterson, in Glorious French Food (the source of my recipe) says that "fatback" is the American term for unsalted pork fat.

So I'm thinking I should soak and or simmer the stuff before I use it.

Edited April 19, 2004 by SethG (log)

[paul o' vendange]

I have not known fatback to be salted.

Paul

[Busboy]

I've never know it to be unsalted. Regional differences?

[Carolyn Tillie]

Here in the west, it is salted. I use it in my terrines, but blanch it first to remove *some* of the salt.

[paul o' vendange]

That's so funny - just looked up on the dictionary, and indeed it is usually considered essentially the same as salt pork.

Our local butcher carries it as pure fatback - sheets or cubes, off the pig, which is how I have always bought it. Unsalted.

Never knew otherwise, interesting to find out.

Paul

[Louisa Chu]

Fatback in France is usually NOT salted. If you do blanche it of course make it's entirely cooled before mixing it with your raw meat/egg/etc. ingredients. It's funny - in France where ALL kinds of kitchen hygiene rules are ignored - working with raw meat mixtures is the one area where chefs really don't like to mess around - working with it over ice usually.

[Mabelline]

I'm probably out of my league, but fatback may or may not be salted, depending on if it was used immediately or not. Sometimes we only ended up with trimmings, which were salted, because the fat was so good it got rendered. But the salt problems are easily done away with, if you stick it in low temp water, and leach the salt, it would seem.

Edit to say, I totally spaced on milk. Then your fat won't have to be heated before it is in the dish.

Edited April 19, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[budrichard]

For inclusion into a terrine or pate I use a fatty pork. As for lining the terrine, I long ago switched from fatback to Crisco with no problems. Caul fat would be nice but is difficult for me to obtain. -Dick