Larry Swain > wrote:

> Does anyone have a good cassoulet recipe they'd like to share?

Here is a recipe I posted a few times before. It is a very good one
from Elizabeth David's _French Country Cooking_ and includes an amusing
quotation from Anatole France in original French.

Victor

Le Cassoulet de Castelnaudary

"Je veux vous amener chez Clémence, une petite taverne de la rue
Vavin, où l'on ne fait qu'un plat, mais un plat prodigieux. On sait que
pour avoir toutes ses qualités le cassoulet doit cuir doucement sur un
feu bas. Le cassoulet de la mère Clémence cuit depuis vingt ans. Elle
ajoute de temps en temps, dans la marmite, de l'oie, ou du lard, parfois
un morceau de saucisson ou quelque haricots, mais c'est toujours le même
cassoulet. La base demeure, et c'est cette antique et précieuse base
qui donne au plat une qualité comparable à ces tons ambrés si
particulier qui caractèrisent les chairs dans les oeuvres des vieux
maîtres vénitiens."
So wrote Anatole France of the _Cassoulet_, wonderful dish of
south-western France, which through the years has been raised from the
status of a humble peasant dish to one of the glories of French cooking.
Toulouse, Carcassonne, Périgord, Castelnaudary, Gascony, Castannau, all
have their own versions of the _Cassoulet_. The ingredients vary from
fresh pork and mutton to smoked sausages, garlic sausages, bacon, smoked
pork and pigs' cheek. The essentials are good white haricot beans and a
capacious earthenware pot (the name _Cassoulet_ comes from Cassol
D'Issel, the original clay cooking utensil from the little town of
Issel, near Castelnaudary).

For the _Cassoulet_ of Castelnaudary the ingredients a

1 1/2-2 lb medium sized white haricot beans (this amount will
feed six to eight people; the _Cassoulet_ is a dish to be made
in quantity; it can be heated up), a wing and a leg of preserved
goose or half a fresh goose, a coarse pork sausage of about 1 lb
or several small ones, 1/2 lb bacon, 3 onions, 4 or 5 cloves of
garlic, 2 tomatoes, and, if possible, 2 pints of meat stock.

Put the beans to soak overnight; next day put them into fresh water
and cook for about 2 1/2 hours, keeping them just on the boil, until
they are three-quarters cooked, then strain them.
In the meantime prepare the stock in which they are to finish
cooking. Slice the onions and cut the bacon into squares and melt them
together in a pan, add the crushed garlic, the tomatoes, seasoning and
herbs, and pour over the stock and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Take
the pieces of goose out of their pot with the good lard adhering to
them. (If you are using fresh goose, it must be half roasted; have some
good pork or goose dripping as well.)
Put the goose, the dripping, the sausage, and the bacon from the
stock, at the bottom of the earthenware pot, which has been well rubbed
with garlic, and the beans on the top. Add the prepared stock. Bring
the _Cassoulet_ slowly to the boil, then spread a layer of breadcrumbs
on the top and put the pot into a slow oven and leave it until the beans
are cooked. This will take about 1 hour, during which time most of the
stock will be absorbed and a crust will have formed on the top of the
beans.
Serve it exactly as is; a good young red wine should be drunk with
this dish; a salad and a country cheese of some kind to finish will be
all you need afterwards.
Duck can be used instead of goose, and at Christmas time the legs or
wings of turkey go very well into the _Cassoulet_.