Am curious if you've a favorite cassoulet recipe you'd willingly
share?

The Ranger

The Ranger wrote:

> Am curious if you've a favorite cassoulet recipe you'd willingly
> share?

Looks like That Bob's been caught up with Real Life, but I'm happy to
provide the Les Halles recipe for cassoulet. If you start now, you can have
it on New Year's Day:

Cassoulet
Serves 4

This is a great, not very difficult dish to make, and it doesn't take much
time - if you spread the work over three days: a few easy, fairly uninvolved
small tasks per day.

You will also need to know how to make duck confit, a skill that will serve
you well should you ever want to serve it as an appetizer or use the meat as
ravioli filling (very tasty). Let's begin with the confit and move on from
there. As it will survive happily in your refrigerator for weeks, you can
make it way in advance.

Ingredients for the duck confit
4 duck legs
Sea salt
2 cups (450 grams) duck fat
Black pepper
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
1 garlic clove

Equipment
Shallow dish
Plastic wrap
Sauce pan
Ovenproof casserole
Foil

Day One
Rub the duck legs fairly generously with sea salt, place in the shallow
dish, cover with plastic, and refrigerate overnight. At all times, keep your
work area clean and your ingredients free of contamination - meaning don't
allow any other foodstuffs like bread crumbs or scraps to get into your duck
or duck fat or confit, as they will make an otherwise nearly nonperishable
preparation suddenly perishable.

Day Two
Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC). Render (melt) the duck fat in the
saucepan until clear. After seasoning with the black pepper (not too much),
place the duck legs in the clean, ovenproof casserole, nestle the thyme,
rosemary, and garlic in with it, and pour the duck fat over the legs to just
cover. Cover the dish with foil and put in the oven. Cook for about an hour,
or until the skin at the "ankle" of each leg pulls away from the "knuckle."
The meat should be tender.

Allow to cool and then store as is in the refrigerator, sealed under the
fat. When you need the confit, you can either warm the whole dish, in which
case removing the legs will be easy, or dig them out of the cold fat and
scrape off the excess. I highly recommend the former. A nice touch at this
point is to twist out the thighbone from the cold confit. Just place one
hand on the drumstick, pinioning the leg to the table, and with the other
hand, twist out the thighbone, plucking it from the flesh without mangling
the thigh meat. Think of someone you hate when you do it.

Ingredients for the cassoulet
5 cups (1100 grams) Tarbais beans or white beans
2 pounds (900 grams) fresh pork belly
1 onion, cut into 4 pieces
1 pound (450 grams) pork rind
1 bouquet garni
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup (56 grams) duck fat
6 pork sausages
3 onions, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
4 confit duck legs

Equipment
Large bowl
Large pot
Strainer or colander
Sauté pan
Paper towels
Blender
Large, ovenproof earthenware dish
Measuring cup
Kitchen spoon

Day One
Place the beans in the large bowl and cover with cold water so that there
are at least two or three inches of water above the top of the beans. Soak
overnight. That was hard, right?

Day Two
Drain and rinse the beans and place in the large pot. Add the pork belly,
the quartered onion, 1/4 pound (112 grams) of the pork rind, and the bouquet
garni. Cover with water, add salt and pepper to taste, and bring to a boil.
Reduce to a simmer and cook until the beans are tender, about an hour. Let
cool for 20 minutes, then discard the onion and the bouquet garni.

Remove the pork belly, cut it into 2-inch (5-centimeter) squares, and set
aside. (If you plan to wait another day before finishing the dish, wait to
cut the pork belly until then.) Strain the beans and the rind and set aside,
reserving the cooking liquid separately.

In the sauté pan, heat all but 1 tablespoon (14 grams) of the duck fat over
medium-high heat until it shimmers and becomes transparent. Carefully add
the sausages and brown on all sides. Remove and set aside, draining on paper
towels.

In the same pan, over medium-high heat, brown the sliced onions, the garlic,
and the reserved squares of pork rind from the beans (not the unused pork
rind; you'll need that later). Once browned, remove from the heat and
transfer to the blender. Add 1 tablespoon (14 grams) of the remaining duck
fat, and purée until smooth. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Place the uncooked pork rind in the
bottom of a deep ovenproof earthenware dish. You're looking to line the
inside, almost like a piecrust. Arrange all your ingredients in alternating
layers, beginning with a layer of beans, then sausages, then more beans,
then pork belly, beans, duck confit, and finally more beans, adding a dab of
the onion and pork-rind puree between each layer. Add enough of the bean
cooking liquid to just cover the beans, reserving 1 cup (225 milliliters) in
the refrigerator for later use.

Cook the cassoulet in the oven for 1 hour, then reduce the heat to 250ºF
(130ºC) and cook for another hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Refrigerate overnight.

Day Three
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC) again. Cook the cassoulet for an hour.
Break the crust on the top with the spoon and add 1/4 cup (56 milliliters)
of the reserved cooking liquid. (Don't get fancy. Just pile, dab, stack, and
pile. It doesn't have to be pretty.) Reduce the heat to 250ºF (130ºC) and
continue cooking another 15 minutes, or until screamingly hot through and
through. Then serve.


Bob

Bob Terwilliger wrote:

> The Ranger wrote:
>
>
>>Am curious if you've a favorite cassoulet recipe you'd willingly
>>share?
>
>
> Looks like That Bob's been caught up with Real Life, but I'm happy to
> provide the Les Halles recipe for cassoulet. If you start now, you can have
> it on New Year's Day:
>
> Cassoulet
> Serves 4
>

I've been looking for this one. You rock.


--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com

On 29 Dec 2005 15:26:03 -0600, "Bob Terwilliger"
> replied:
>The Ranger wrote:
> > Am curious if you've a favorite cassoulet recipe
> > you'd willingly share?
> >
> Looks like That Bob's been caught up with Real Life, but I'm happy to
> provide the Les Halles recipe for cassoulet. If you start now, you can have
> it on New Year's Day:
[snip recipe]

Thank ya kindly, sir! That sounds like what I was hoping for!

The Ranger