Simple French Cooking

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An Ode to Cassoulet

Cassoulet, that best of bean feasts, is everyday fare for a peasant but ambrosia for a gastronome, though its ideal consumer is a 300-pound blocking back who has been splitting firewood nonstop for the last twelve hours on a subzero day in Manitoba.Any cassoulet worthy of the name is not a light dish, and is probably best served as a noontime dinner. - Julia Child

A light rain falls solemnly on a cool grey December morning. I sit peacefully at my father's weathered dinner table carefully studying the contours in its ancient face. I felt comforted by the character of its imperfections; pondering how many family stories are sheathed deep within the old knife grooves and nicks that scar the surface. A thousand tales could be told if only my father's table could speak. On it rests a well-worn and slightly cracked clay cassolle that surely has been the vessel of countless cassoulets in its 80 years of existence. It rests, radiating conviviality and fraternity, filled with a mixture of preserved duck, pork shoulder, lamb ribs and white Tarbais beans still bubbling gently within. My stomach feels empty; no actually hollow. It actually growls with anticipation. cassouletMy eyes close as the porky steam rushes upward towards the heavens. I crack further through the crunchy, golden crust. A wave of pure satisfaction floods my heart.

Cassoulet

A classic French peasant dish of mixed meat and beans.

Cooking the Beans

  • 1 pound white beans
  • 1 onion
  • 10 cloves
  • 6 ounces pork skin
  • 1 pound pork belly
  • 3 carrots
  • 1 rib celery
  • 4 garlic cloves (mashed)
  • 2 quarts homemade chicken or duck stock
  • 2 tomatoes (diced)

cooking the meats

  • 4 ounces duck or goose fat
  • 1 onion (chopped)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
  • 1 pound boneless pork shoulder
  • 1 pound lamb ribs
  • 16 ounces bean cooking liquid

final assembly

  • 1 pound garlic sausage
  • 4 duck legs cooked confit style ([url href="http://eattillyoubleed.com/2015/08/cooking-is-love/" target="_blank"]recipe here[/url])
  • 4 ounces panko

Cooking the Beans

  1. Soak the white beans overnight in a pan of cold water.
  2. Peel your onion and stick the cloves into the onion.
  3. The next day, drain the beans.
  4. Put them in a large pot with the pork skin, pork belly, onion, carrots, celery and garlic. I leave everything in big pieces.
  5. Cover by two inches with cold water and bring to a rapid boil.
  6. Reduce to a simmer, and cook for 1.5 - 2 hours, or until tender.
  7. Drain the beans, saving both the liquid, the meat and the vegetables.
  8. Mix diced tomatoes with cooked beans.
  9. Dice all the vegetables and mix with beans.
  10. Slice the pork belly and reserve till final assembly of he cassoulet..

cooking the meats

  1. While the beans are cooking, prepare the meats.
  2. Heat duck fat in a large flat saute pan till smoking hot.
  3. Add chopped onion and thyme.
  4. Saute for five minutes.
  5. Cut pork shoulder into large chunks and add.
  6. Cut lamb ribs into individual riblets and add to the pork.
  7. Brown both meats thoroughly, about ten minutes.
  8. Cover with bean cooking liquid and simmer for two hours.
  9. Separate meat and cooking liquid, saving both.

final assembly

  1. Line an oven proof pot large enough to hold everything with the pork skin. The skin will disintegrate into the beans as it cooks and provide an unctuousness that is addictive.
  2. Cover with one half of the beans.
  3. Slice your garlic sausage into thick slices.
  4. Cut the duck confit in half.
  5. Arrange all the meats EXCEPT the sliced pork belly over the beans.
  6. Top with the remaining beans.
  7. Arrange the sliced pork belly on top.
  8. Pour in the reserved cooking liquid.
  9. Cover with a quarter of your panko and bake for one hour in a preheated 350 degree oven.
  10. After one hour, stir the crust that forms into the top layer of beans, sprinkle more panko and continue baking another twenty minutes.
  11. Repeat the panko process three more times finishing with the last layer NOT being broken into the cassoulet.
  12. Enjoy.

This is an easy dish to do though there are several steps. In France there are many variations of cassoulet. People argue about authentic cassoulet as much as a real bouillabaisse. Aficionados of "le cassoulet" will no doubt be angered by my choice of using simply white beans. Although purists will howl, make this in your own fashion. Cassoulet has been thought to have Moorish roots though no one is certain. The name comes from cassole, an earthen dish glazed on the inside.

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