Pork rind

Couenne

What it is

Castelnaudary lines the bottom of the cassole with sheets of rind, fat side down, before a single bean goes in: they stop the base catching and dissolve into the gelatine that gives the dish its lip-sticking body. Rind is close to pure collagen, which is why a scrap of it in a stockpot does more for texture than an extra hour of simmering.

In the kitchen

Scrape the underside clean of fat and blanch the sheets ten minutes from cold water before they go in the pot, or they perfume the dish with pig instead of melting quietly. Dried, then fried at 200 °C, they blister into crackling.

Goes with

Tarbais bean Garlic Duck confit Onion Bay leaf Carrot Black pepper Thyme

Same species

Andouillette Boudin blanc Natural casings Caul fat Chorizo Ciauscolo

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us