You already know I’m not a fan of hot humid weather, and that I’m a picky eater as well. I use a lot of salads (egg salad, tuna salad, etc) during the summer. This year I’ve added pork rillettes to the summer standby list. I’ve known what rillettes was for a long time–I’d just not thought of making them myself, although I’d do confit.

The pork rillettes* were so tasty that I decided to explore other possibilities; I know duck rillettes are heavenly, but what about chicken or turkey–other cooked meats.

While I was exploring I found salmon and tuna rillettes recipes (and other fish). This might be a possible way enjoy food in the summer, especially since I had my homemade tuna confit as a starting point. These cannot be had around for an anytime snack like the pork rillettes that I made earlier–recipes using butter and oil suggest three days in the refrigerator.

I thought that tuna rillettes might provide a welcome break from just “tuna salad” no matter how you make it so the search for recipes began. One possibility came from The New York Times food section. These use olive oil as the fat, and should be quick an easy to make. Another variation that I found used butter as the fat. Both these recipes start with canned tuna, so my tuna confit fits well into either of these. I did find one recipe that started with raw tuna (to be baked) that used creme fraiche instead of olive oil or butter.

Searching for tuna rillettes (naturally with other links and Google help) lead to exploring salmon rillettes. Though I’m not a real salmon fan some of these recipes look possible for summer food. One that began with salmon fillet (from Food & Wine) sounded like a possible, especially since I don’t really like canned salmon. Again from the New York Times (Martha Rose Shulman) produced a likely sounding recipe–and a link led me to her article ” Pâté From the Sea” with more links for seafood based rillettes. And…more links to David Lebovitz’s eponymous website and more rillettes recipes for salmon rillettes using butter and for sardine pâté or spread which is right along the same path as rillettes. (So many things to explore!)

More links led to chicken rillettes from Epicurious and Bon Appetit, and buffalo chicken rillettes from Saveur. The recipe from Food52 was much like the pork rillettes recipe from Essential Pepin; I think this is going to be next on my summer food list–a welcome change from my usual chicken salad!

Just as I thought I had reached the end of by browsing I found a link to–turkey rillettes! I don’t know why I was surprised–it’s meat and it can be confitted, so why not rillettes as a way to deal with leftover turkey although I suspect the best result would be from cooking the meat in some way other than roasting! But, there were smoked turkey rillettes (recipe from The New York Times), turkey rillettes made from purpose-cooked legs and thighs (Culinary Anthropologist), and grilled turkey rillettes from Nils Bernstein (Wine Enthusiast). Despite these recipes, I doubt that I’ll be trying turkey rillettes. (See Turkey Rillettes on Plant & Plate. That sums up what I thought about turkey rillettes–not an experience I need. If I’m going to use that much duck fat, I’ll make duck rillettes!

(Note: * Though some of these recipes use the term loosely, rillettes are not pâté! Pâté translates as “paste” so the texture is usually different from rillettes that have more texture. It’s sort of a continuum!