Tuna Rillettes (+ Salad Niçoise Sandwich ) # French Fridays with Dorie

In French cuisine, rillettes are appetizers usually made with pork or goose meat that is diced, seasoned, cooked, then pounded or ground and served as a spread.  As the title suggests, this week the Doristas were assigned to prepare Tuna rillettes... that is a spread with tuna. 

The recipe was quick and got done in less than 10 minutes. All I had to do was to empty two drained cans of tuna in the jar of the blender, add a finely chopped shallot, bit of curry powder, bit of ground all spice, few tablespoons of heavy cream, salt, pepper and lime juice to it, blend the mixture to a smooth paste and refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.

Of course we, that is my son and I did not wait that long to taste the rillettes. As soon as the spread as ready, I scooped out a spoonful, tasted and immediately decided to make myself a Sandwich along the lines of Salad Niçoise, the salad that had inspired the Mediterranean Chicken salad. Little boy on the other hand tasted the spread and asked me if I had made a fish smoothie... Yes my rillettes did seem like a smoothie because of the 4 tablespoons of heavy cream that I had added at a go, but it was tasty nevertheless...

And in my "Salad Niçoise sandwich" it was simply wonderful ! 

For the sandwich, I toasted two slices of bread, generously slathered the rillettes on both of them, then piled  a handful of baby spinach, 4-5 strands of boiled green beans, 3-4 thin slices of boiled potato, 4 halved cherry tomatoes, 3 halved black olives, 2 capers and an anchovy on one slice of bread, seasoned it with salt and pepper and sandwiched it with the second slice of bread. Since the rillette had enough flavors, I decided to skip the vinaigrette. That was a good idea for the sandwich was perfect as it was. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I decided to repeat today's lunch menu for the next few days....   

Visit French Fridays with Dorie to know what the other members thought about this spread. You can find the  recipe for the tuna rillettes here . For more such delicious recipes order your copies of Around my French Table and join the Doristas in this tasty adventure.

I shall be sharing this recipe at some of these parties.