Cook-off 1: Cassoulet

[Abra]

I made cassoulet from Toulouse tonight. Next time I'll use more garlic and maybe some thyme - I wanted more spark to the flavors. I made the duck confit, pork belly confit, and Toulouse sausages that were included in the dish. I used Tarbais beans, but next time I'll use Rancho Gordo - I honestly didn't think the $25 a kilo Tarbais were truly exceptional.

[Abra]

It's cassoulet season again, hurray! I made a really easy and fabulously delicious cassoulet last night, and described it in detail here. It took time, but the oven did all the work. It was inexpensive, and so easy that anyone could make it. Try it!

[ChefJohnny]

Tis the season once again for cassoulet. I make it every year when it starts to get cold. This is the first time I've made it for my parents. I am lucky to have a really great friend that owns the best butcher shop around, probably in all of Virginia, so I was able to source all my meat products through her. The duck confit happened to have been made the day before, as well as my pork sausage, called Della Nonna. I also picked up some rare breed pork belly.

The beans. Cooked in my own chicken stock with mire poix, fresh thyme, fresh bay leaves, and the pork belly.

Heres the Della Nonna

And the glorious duck confit in all its fatty goodness!

More pics to come!

-Chef Johnny

Before going into the oven...

Edited November 16, 2007 by ChefJohnny (log)

[Chris Amirault]

What's the basic recipe for the Della Nonna? Is it a Toulouse-type sausage?

[ChefJohnny]

What's the basic recipe for the Della Nonna? Is it a Toulouse-type sausage?

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I don't have the recipe, it was made by my butcher friend. I believe its Toulouse style, pork based with white wine and garlic, and parsley.

-Chef Johnny

[Anna N]

This is probably heresy but has anyone tried Jacques Pepin's 30 minute cassoulet from Fast Food My Way? If so, how was it?

I did search this topic but nothing came up.

[eldereno]

I've done the Bourdain's recipe. It did take a couple of days but was delicious. Has anyone tested or tried the Mark Bittman recipe in his newest Quick recipe cookbook?

[Dave Hatfield]

Everyone seems interested in quick cassoulet recipes so here's mine. Being a traditionalist and somewhat passionate on the subject of authentic cassoulet I have stuck to the 'traditional' ingredients. ( I'm not against trying new things & ways, but just don't still call it cassoulet. For detail see my rant upon this subject on my blog.)

I will freely admit that I have an unfair advantage in making cassoulet. I live in South West France so ingredients are easy to come by. Having said that this bean dish is not properly a cassoulet even though the ingredients are all traditional.

Here goes. Start to in oven was exactly 30 minutes. (I did soak the beans (I use tarbais beans since they're easy to get, but plain old lingots or great northerns work just as well.) over night in this case, but I could have just started fresh & boiled them for 15 minutes while I did other things.)

1) Brown the Ham hock & lamb shank in Duck fat.

2) Meanwhile make a mirepoix and bring the beans to a boil.

3) add a head of garlic, peeled & crushed, to the beans. Add a good dollop of tomato puree & lots of herbs de province to the beans. Turn beans off after 10 minutes of boiling.

4) Take the meats out of the pot & put in the mirepoix. Simmer gently.

5) Fry up a pound or more of Toulouse type sausage, then cut into bite sized links.

6) Pour contents of bean pot into the mirepoix pot & bring to a boil. Turn off heat as soon as it boils.

7) Ready for assembly now. Put a layer of beans in the pot. Add the ham hock. More beans. The lamb shank. More beans & some sausage pieces. Now add your comfit pieces. (For this cassoulet I used 'manchons' which are the leg bits, comfit'd, of a duck. Incredibly cheap in my village shop.) Add couenne. (if you can't get it pork skin which has been boiled for 20 minutes will work). More beans. The rest of the sausage.

8) Pour over the bean juice to just cover. If not enough bean juice then add red wine to make up the difference.

Now ready for the oven. 180 C for about 3 hours. Take it out then to rest & blend the flavors. Adjust seasonings. Back into the oven about an hour or so before serving. Add more bean juice/ red wine if needed to cover.

Once the cassoulet is simmering again add the bread crumbs if you like. After a further 15 minutes push that layer of crumbs down & add a second one to finish off.

( I'm not adding crumbs today because one of our guests is allergic to all things wheaten.)

There you have it; 30 minute cassoulet.

The secret to speed is the ham hock & lamb shank. They need no preparation, but have the requisite flavors. If you can't get a Toulouse type sausage I found in the states that mild Italian worked well. If you don't have duck fat then olive oil works.

Try it. Its not a 'proper' cassoulet so I call it Dave's Lingot ragu a la Sud Ouest. Sounds good even though it doesn't mean much.

Proper recipe in blog below.

[Chris Amirault]

It's early December, so I'm starting to think about the multiweek process leading up to New Years cassoulet. I've already made the Toulouse sausages a while back on a charcuterie frenzy, and I've been eyeing ducks around town to get the confit going. I also am starting to weigh the crumb/no crumb decision, thinking that this might be a good year to try the crumbs.

What about y'all?

[MarkinHouston]

I made a batch to take to deer camp the week after Thanskgiving. I used confit of turkey thighs rather than duck, Toulouse sausage, and pork confit. I also used the haricot vert from Ranco Gordo, lined the cassole with fresh pork belly skin, and toppped with crumbs. It was a great surprise for several cassoulet neophytes. I still prefer using duck confit, but the turkey thighs were very reasonable.

[arbeck]

I'm making the Les Halles Cassoulet for Christmas dinner, and have a question about the recipe. It calls for lining the bottom of the dish with the pork rind before cooking. Does this get eaten? There is no mention of what happens to it later in the recipe. Should it be taken out and chopped? or just ignored? Or does it get soft enough to get scooped out?

Edited December 10, 2007 by arbeck (log)

[Busboy]

Welcome! We had cassoulet for Thanksgiving at our house (kind of a cross between Les Halles and Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France) and I ended up munching the leftovers for days afterwards.

It softens up enough to munch, though it's a little rich for my taste. I think of it like the fatback in a good batch of baked beans: thanks for the flavor, but I ain't eating you.

[eldereno]

When I made the Les Halles recipe for New Year's Eve last year

(the picture was taken after the first bake)

I did line the cassole with the pork skin....but, instead of in one large piece, it was cut into triangle, diamond, and rectangle shapes to fit into the cassole (I did not have a piece large enough to line it whole). In the final dish, the pieces were somewhat incorporated into each serving based on the scoop one took. Like Busboy said, it was a very velvety and smooth and added a lot to the mouth feel of the dish and the flavor but was a little too rich to eat much of. I'm glad I did this as my first cassolet but am looking forward to trying other recipes.

[Chris Amirault]

Welcome, indeed!

Let's face it: for many, the thought of munching on pork rind is anathema. My wife, for example, finds the concept repugnant, so I scour the cassoulet (and barbecue pork, and ...) for shards of fat. However, if my paternal grandfather were still alive (he who cut off the fat from pork chops not to avoid it but to save it to the last bite), it would be the finest culinary jewel.

That is to say, the right person will kill for that stretch of pig skin. Maybe you just have to turn your back for a minute or two when it's at the table, you know?

[arbeck]

So, if I leave it whole, someone would be able to scoop out a bit if they were so inclined.

[Dave Hatfield]

Haven't read the Les Halles recipe, but it sounds like there may have been way too much pork skin put into the pot.

I cut mine into small triangles (less than one cm per side) and use sparingly. They should just cook in adding to the texture & flavor but not being visible.

Better yet is couenne, but probably hard to find outside of France. Paula Wolfert gives a good recipe on how to make it.

Make sure to boil the pork rind for 20+ minutes before putting it in.

[arbeck]

Dave,

If you curious, the Les Halles recipe is here:

http://travel.discovery.com/tv/bourdain/re...-cleveland.html

Bourdain made it on an episode of his show, so the travel channel put it on line.

[Busboy]

So, if I leave it whole, someone would be able to scoop out a bit if they were so inclined.

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Yep-- it is easily spotted, whether you wish to avoid it or consume it.

Haven't read the Les Halles recipe, but it sounds like there may have been way too much pork skin put into the pot.

I cut mine into small triangles (less than one cm per side) and use sparingly. They should just cook in adding to the texture & flavor but not being visible.

My impression from both Bourdain and Wolfert is that pretty much the entire cassoule should be lined with the stuff. Of course, there are a thousand different recipes, so cassoulet, so it's possible that everybody's "right."

[Chris Amirault]

It's hard to imagine too much pork skin or fat in this dish, I must say.

[muichoi]

If there's no pork skin,it's not cassoulet. If most people who are going to eat it wouldn't like it, after cooking the tied roll with both the beans and the meat, puree in the blender with some cooking liquid and return. Excellent results.

[arbeck]

muichoi,

The recipe does call for doing that to some of the skin. But it also calls for lining the pot with even more skin.

[eldereno]

Has anyone tried the recipe from the D'Aragnan site? Uses French Ventreche instead of pork rind and/or pork belly.

[Busboy]

Has anyone tried the recipe from the D'Aragnan site?  Uses French Ventreche instead of pork rind and/or pork belly.

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Different stuff, different purpose. Wolfert calls for ventreche but allows pancetta to be substituted, and also calls for the rind. (Wolfert uses pork shoulder instead of belly, as well).

[Dave Hatfield]

Dave,

If you curious, the Les Halles recipe is here:

http://travel.discovery.com/tv/bourdain/re...-cleveland.html

Bourdain made it on an episode of his show, so the travel channel put it on line.

←

Thanks for the link. A nice recipe, but over complicated I think. Not enough garlic by far and, I think, too much pork skin. But as we all know there are as many cassoulete recipes as there are cassoulete cooks.

On my original 30 minute cassoulete post I promised pictures, then forgot. So here they are belatedly.

Cooked in cassole. No bread crumb top as our guest was allergic to anything with flour in it. A pity as I love the crust.

Here's a portion on the plate. Delicious.

I'd love to hear from anybody who has tried either of my recipes. The quick or the full pop.

[Chris Amirault]

Again using a combination of techniques stolen from Bourdain, the Saveur French book, and, mais oui, Wolfert, I got the cassoulet in the oven today.

Here's the cassole with some skin-on rind lining it:

I sautéed these Tolouse sausages (using a tweak of Wolfert's recipe with a few ideas from Ruhlman's Charcuterie) in duck confit fat then halved them:

Using the same fat, I then cooked up some of the pork belly that I had cut away from the rinds above and tossed with some salt, pepper, and quatre epices:

Then -- yup, using the same fat -- I sautéed three sliced onions and a head of garlic, then blended it up with a bit of duck stock:

Here's the confit I put up a few weeks ago from two ducks (whose stock I just mentioned):

And here are the beans. I used about a kilo of flageolet beans, half from Rancho Gordo and half from a Montreal grocer from a trip a while back. I cooked them with the bones and some skin of a smoked butt, four split pigs' feet, some thyme, and some lardons. The gelatinous stock was out of this world:

Ready for the oven.

325F for about 3 1/2 hours -- I wait until I see bubbles coming from the very center of the cassole:

Then a rest for the night on the porch. Tomorrow I'll get it back in the oven (with breadcrumbs this time) to finish at 350F, served with a frisée, pear, and walnut salad.

Happy New Year, everyone!

edited to add last photo -- ca

Edited January 1, 2008 by chrisamirault (log)