Cassoulet

We've been making Cassoulet since 1996 with various complicated French recipes, and even took a class at L'Academie de Cuisine. It's a great, rich, hearty, cold-weather bean and meat stew from southern France. We've even made a pilgrimage to Castelnaudry which claims to have invented the dish; indeed, the fields all around the town are planted with the white beans that comprise the base. Now we're not so fussy, especially after seeing L'Academie's chef-owner wasn't even following his own recipe. We always used to start with a 2-pound bag of white beans, but it makes a ton of rich stew; here, we're cutting back to 1 pound dried beans to start: it still makes 6-8 portions.

The basic idea is to cook the rehydrated beans in a rich, flavorful stock, then combine with garlic-y sausage and duck confit; some recipes have you layer them, others have you combine at service; it's OK to just combine when you're finishing in the oven.  Most recipes suggest adding breadcrumbs and fat while finishing in the oven and this gives a wonderfully crunchy crust.

We make duck confit with a simple sous vide technique; it's so easy there's no reason not to have this simple luxury.

Ingredients

• 1 pound Beans, dry, white, northern or flageolets (2 Cups)
• 4 Cup Stock
• 1/2 pound Bacon, slab
• 1 Carrot, cut into thirds
• 1 Onion, halved, stuck with the Clove
• 1 Clove
• 1 Bouquet Garni
• 1 Tbs Salt
• 2 piece Duck Confit (legs), prepared earlier
• 1 Sausage, garlic or lamb, cut into coins
• 2 Onions, finely chopped
• 3 clove Garlic, chopped
• 1 Tomatoes, peeled, seeded, chopped bean-size (or 2 Cups canned)
• 1/2 Cup Breadcrumbs
• 1/4 Cup Duck Fat from the Confit

Beans

Soak Beans in 3x amount of cold water for 12 hours. If after 6 hours water is cloudy, change it. Drain. Rinse the Beans and place in large heavy-bottomed pan. Cover with cold water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain. Return Beans to the pot and add 4 Cups Stock. Add Salt, Bacon, Carrot, Clove-studded Onion, and Bouquet Garni. Bring to boil and simmer for about 1 hour, until beans are almost tender. Do not stir while cooking.

Meat and Veg

Meanwhile...

In saute pan, brown the Sausage; you can also brown the Duck, skin side down, or pull the skin and crisp it separately, adding the cooked Duck Confit in later. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. In the same pan, sweat the finely chopped Onions in butter until soft and translucent. Add the chopped garlic, tomatoes, and 1/2 C of the cooking liquid from beans. Cook covered for 5 minutes; if drying out, add some stock.

Assembly

When the beans are almost tender, remove Carrot, Onion, Bacon, Bouquet Garni; Beans should be still quite wet, lots of liquid remains; this is necessary. 

Add the Onion/Tomato mixture, Sausage, Duck meat pulled from the bones. 

Check the seasoning of the Beans; some cooking liquid should remain.

In a large oven-proof casserole, layer or simply combine the meats and beans with their liquid. Sprinkle with Breadcrumbs and pour 1/2 Cup Duck Fat over the crumbs. Bake covered at 325F for 2 hours. Uncover 20 minutes before done to brown the Breadcrumbs.

2012-02-26 Dry Beans

We didn't have hydrated or soaked beans so use a pressure cooker to expedite the cooking -- we wanted cassoulet tonight, dammit! We used 2 pounds dry Great Northern Beans (about 5 Cups), 15 Cups water, 6 Tbs Oil (to prevent foaming), and included Bacon Rind, Carrot, Onion. Pressure cooked at 15 PSI for 20 minutes, and the beans came out done -- done enough to eat, but a little too done for further cooking. Since our beans were wet and finished, we cut back from 8 Cup Stock to 5 Cups. We baked uncovered so we didn't cook any more than necessary. Here too we used duck confit made directly by sous vide method. Next time, for 2 pounds (5 cups), cut back to 12 cups water and 15 minutes pressure cooking.