California Christmas Cassoulet

[Carolyn Tillie]

Inspired by FoodMan's thread on his Houston Cassoulet, I offer the following blog as my conversion to Clay Pot cooking... For seven years, I have made Cassoulet as my traditional Christmas meal. Back in September, I started the hunt for a traditional Cassole in this thread into which I could prepare my Cassoulet this year. I was unsuccessful in acquiring one of my own, but fortune shined upon me as one was offered as a loaner (therein lies a whole other fabulous story of a budding friendship ).

Inspired by Paula Wolfert's November Food and Wine article on Clay Pot Cooking, I opted to utilize her recipe from The Cooking of South West France. It is an extensive, three-day affair.

Day 1...

Seasoning various pork products to sit overnight in a fridge:

Day 2

The hard work begins First it was to sort and soak the beans:

Then I had to blanch the pork skin and salt pork:

I browned some pork butt:

And added mire poix:

Then the blanched pork goes in along with some fresh hocks:

Adding the prosciutto, tomato, and stock:

And then the beans:

Day 3

Ragout of cooked pork and beans (basically, everything but the sausages & confit)

The confit is ready:

So are the Toulousian sausages:

Starting to layer into the Clay Pot:

Several hours later, Cassoulet is served!

The Chef gets the first taste!

Loved by all!

I'm a complete convert. Within three days, I headed to Chinatown to procur a Chinese Sand Pot for my next clay pot experiment.

[Mabelline]

S-S-S-S-L-L-L-L-O-O-O-O-W-W-W-W....and beautiful !!!!

[John Whiting]

Georgia LacLeod Sales and Grover Sales, _The [Etruscan] Clay-Pot Cookbook_, Atheneum, 1974 is regularly available through ABE.

Cassoles are still made in large quantities by the Not family in Mas-Saintes-Puelles. They supply almost all the local restaurants which serve cassoulet, and so breakage keeps them well supplied with replacement orders. They were featured in the Saveur article on cassoulet in the Jan/Feb 1998 issue. My wife and I went there a couple of years later and recorded our visit:

THE Not pottery in Mas-Saintes-Puelles is in an ancient two-floored barn whose air hangs heavy with the fine dust of the red clay. I start to cough almost as soon as I walk through the door. How has the family escaped being wiped out by silicosis?

   

In space after space of the roughly-walled barn the dirt floor is covered with pots of all sizes and shapes. These are honest functional rustic shapes you’d be happy to live with forever.

   

Aimé Not, the pater familias, comes to greet us in a leather apron, easily recognizable from his Saveur photo by his stiff curly hair and well-tanned leathery features. He extends both his clay-covered hands to show that the usual French greeting is impossible. In answer to our query he directs us through an arch into a space piled with dozens of cassoles of half-a-dozen graduated sizes. We spend a few minutes sorting through them for a set of three plus a couple to give away to fortunate friends.

   

The office is at the back of the barn next to the work area, where two men, pedalling steadily at their potter’s wheels, are gradually giving form to sloppy masses of red clay. It’s like those wonderful time-fillers in the early days of BBC TV. One of them is Philippe, Aimé’s handsome son who is featured in a Saveur photo. I pull out my copy and ask for his autograph, whereupon Aimé’s leathery face almost cracks in a broad smile and he proceeds to give us a guided tour of the pottery. Above are the huge furnaces, and two more men pass us up the stairs carrying a long pallet with a row of heavy pots ready for firing. What strength there must be in those muscular arms! Aside from the magazine articles pinned to the walls, the whole factory seems to exist in a time capsule--the only 20th century give-away is the already ancient computer in the cluttered office.

[Anna N]

Many thanks for sharing, Carolyn.

A clay pot (though not a cassole!) was supposed to find its way to my home in early December but the friend who offered it to me forgot to bring it! So it sits in Montreal and my friend is somewhere in the USA! His next visit is May.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Georgia LacLeod Sales and Grover Sales, _The [Etruscan] Clay-Pot Cookbook_, Atheneum, 1974 is regularly available through ABE.

Cassoles are still made in large quantities by the Not family in Mas-Saintes-Puelles. They supply almost all the local restaurants which serve cassoulet, and so breakage keeps them well supplied with replacement orders. They were featured in the Saveur article on cassoulet in the Jan/Feb 1998 issue.

It was that article that inspired me to begin my hunt for the Cassole (and I loved the idea of the Order wearing garments inspired by the Cassole). However, in my research, the Not family does not <ahem> have a website or import their pots.

I have seen numerous cookbooks on Clay Pot cooking (including one, I believe, by the Nitty Gritty Publishers), but I have it on good authority that the DEFINITIVE Clay Pot Cookbook is currently be written....

I can be patient and wait for that one.

[John Whiting]

It was [the Saveur] article that inspired me to begin my hunt for the Cassole (and I loved the idea of the Order wearing garments inspired by the Cassole).

We sought out the Hotel where the Grande Confrérie was photographed for Saveur. I do not recommend the experience. This is our record of it:

Burning up the AutoRoute at 120 (that’s kilometres per hour, not miles), we’re back at the Hostellerie Etienne by 1:30, still in time for lunch. A pair of amply upholstered workers at a table next to ours are already tucking into a large cassoulet, accompanied by an enormous platter piled high with mixed vegetables. How can they do it? Haven’t they consulted Richard Olney, who admonishes the reader that nothing more is required than a modest salad of grated celeriac in a rémoulade of mayonnaise, crème fraîche and mustard?

   

Our cassoulet arrives in a red clay pot like the ones we have just purchased from Monsieur Not but well blackened from long and constant use. There’s a reassuring crust on top which I share out carefully between us. Underneath it the beans are rather watery and there’s not much meat: a small portion of confit and no sign of the pork skin or pigs feet that can give the dish its thick oleaginous texture. Even the crust, though blackened, lacks richness; it tastes merely burned. Overall, not a bad flavor, but not something I would have driven miles out of my way for. In fact--dare I say it?--my own cassoulet has been, from the first attempt, noticeably

superior.

   

Back in the Van Rouge I have another look at Monsieur Rousselot’s recipe in Saveur. It calls for a proportion of meat to beans which may well be served to the Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet de Castelnaudary, but certainly not to us. It also calls for four hours slow cooking on two successive days. No way has the cassoulet we’ve just eaten been subjected to that sort of prolonged gentle baking. In fact, how could a restaurant with such a turnover cook by such a schedule? And half-emptied cassoles returned to the kitchen must surely be combined and served again; how could these achieve a crust? (Or if thrown away, who is to pay for such enormous waste?)

   

An inadvertent clue perhaps lies in the photo at the beginning of the article, in which the light glinting off the bowl of a ladle in the chef’s hand looks very like a blowtorch. Is it possible that the crust of the cassoulets routinely served in the restaurant is finished off with a salamander? That would be consistent with the slightly burned taste which had lacked the expected richness.

   

But perhaps I’m being unfair. How is a modestly-priced restaurant to match the quality of even an amateur cook who is prepared to devote however many hours and days it may take to achieve a certain result? This is particularly true of traditional foods that require long and careful attention, whether in the purchase or the preparation of their ingredients. This is the main reason why old-fashioned bistros in France (and chippies in Britain) are disappearing at such an alarming rate. Peasants are no longer prepared to be slaves. If you will make such demands on the time of a skilled artisan, then you must be prepared to pay for it.

[pariah_kerry]

Excellent photos Carolyn. I have to stop reading you people on an empty stomach.

Have you ever used a Rommertoph?

[Richard Kilgore]

John -- thanks for the stories re-told. Do you know if there is a way to order a cassole from the Not family?

[John Whiting]

John -- thanks for the stories re-told. Do you know if there is a way to order a cassole from the Not family?

Alas, Not.

EDIT: But a large pottery mixing bowl -- the traditional sort that's white on the inside and biege on the outside with a molded decorative pattern -- is of almost exactly the same proportions, though with slightly curved rather than straight sides. They're cheap, and the largest size is almost exactly the same capacity as the Not's largest cassole. Since the inside of the cassole is glazed, the glazing on the outside of the mixing bowl is not significant -- neither of them "breathe". I bought one to make an impromptu cassoulet in the north of Scotland with locally available ordinary ingredients and found, as I expected, this this is the sort of dish in which process is more important than precise ingredients.

Edited January 1, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[Jonathan Day]

In mid-December I stopped at a Christmas fair in Mouans Sartoux, a village between Nice and Grasse, where I bought a large, covered terra cotta casserole (perhaps 40-45cm in diameter and 10-12cm deep). It was not expensive -- something like EUR29 if I recall correctly. It is very heavy.

I had planned broader uses than cassoulet for this -- stews, tians, gratins come to mind -- but I don't see why it wouldn't work for a cassoulet as well. It is glazed on the inside and outside (not on the bottom) but there is a fine crackling covering the glaze and it had to be soaked overnight before its first use, presumably indicating that it will "breathe".

For a cassoulet, what are the "right" characteristics for casseroles of this sort?

This heavy terra cotta ware, incidentally, is commonly available not only in France, Spain and Italy but also in cookshops and places like Borough Market in London. It would have to be packed carefully, but I see no reason why the smaller pieces, especially, could not be brought back to the USA in checked luggage.

[Jonathan Day]

How is a modestly-priced restaurant to match the quality of even an amateur cook who is prepared to devote however many hours and days it may take to achieve a certain result? This is particularly true of traditional foods that require long and careful attention, whether in the purchase or the preparation of their ingredients. ... If you will make such demands on the time of a skilled artisan, then you must be prepared to pay for it.

This nicely sums up a culinary transformation that has taken place in the last 100 years, accelerating in the last 20. When dishes like cassoulet were more common, the main thing to be economised was the ingredient, meats especially. Skilled labour was relatively inexpensive -- farm women worked long hours, apprentices in top restaurants worked for a pittance. But it was essential to conserve every scrap of the pig -- blood, fat, ears, and so on. Extra cooking energy was cheap, since ovens were being kept warm for baking.

Today, the economics are completely different: especially under industrialised farming, the cost of ingredients is much less than that of the long labour required to make cassoulet, a real sauce espagnole, blood sausages or poulet à la vapeur Lucien Tendret (truffled chicken, steamed over a double consommé). "Nose-to-tail cooking" is a specialised, luxury art. "Peasant food" is mostly for rich connoisseurs. What's easily and cheaply available in restaurants is no longer slow food but preparations a la minute: grills, sautés, and the like.

[Wolfert]

[since the inside of the cassole is glazed, the glazing on the outside of the mixing bowl is not significant -- neither of them "breathe". I bought one to make an impromptu cassoulet in the north of Scotland with locally available ordinary ingredients and found, as I expected, this this is the sort of dish in which process is more important than precise ingredients.

I so totally agree about the outside of the cassoule not needing a glaze or if there is one not important. What is important, I think, is using earthenware to encourage the slow and even cooking of the whole dish.

The extra wide top is for flavor enhancing of the beans. This happens, I believe, in the final 2 to 3 hours of slow baking in a low to medium oven with an occasional basting of the beans with a few spoonfuls of reserved cooking liquid. A skin forms on top of the beans, gets stirred up, then baking continues to form another skin, and so on..up to 7 times in order to get a really flavorful mix right down to the bottom. The richness of the liquid that enrobes each bean is indispensable to a great rendition of the dish.

I don't really do it seven times, but I suppose it calls for seven, like so many days to make the world; seven this or that to be lucky.

Cassoulet is a big production. One day to soak the beans, a second to cook them and the assorted meats on top of the stove, and finally a slow baking in the morning to produce a great dish.

[Jaymes]

Carolyn --

This thread has been fascinating -- from the inception, through your steps documented by the excellent photography and the discussion of proper cooking vessels.

Thanks!

[Carolyn Tillie]

Have you ever used a Rommertoph?

I don't know what one is - do tell!

[Jaymes]

Have you ever used a Rommertoph?

I don't know what one is - do tell!

Romertopf

[Wolfert]

A romertopf is a porous and unglazed red clay pot that is wonderful for roasting and stewing. You need to soak it before each use but only for 15 minutes or so while you are preparing your vegetables or meat or poultry. The method which is said to be thousands of years old steams food. This preserves flavor, nutrients, and tenderness.

It is fabulous for many dishes, but I wouldn't use if for making cassoulet.

I wish I knew who said the "idea of the form precedes the form." Does anyone know?

Edited January 1, 2004 by Wolfert (log)

[John Whiting]

A romertopf  is a porous and unglazed red clay pot that is wonderful for roasting and stewing. You need  to soak it before each use but only for 15 minutes or so while you are preparing your vegetables or meat or poultry. 

Paula, you're probably familiar with Georgia and Grover Sales' _Clay Pot Cookbook_, published in 1974. They identify the origin of the pot and the method as Etruscan.

I knew Grover as a Bay Area jazz expert when I was working for KPFA Berkeley in the 60s. The intro is by the Bay Area literary light Herbert Gold; the illustrations are by David Lance Goines, one-time partner of Alice Waters who drew so many of Chez Panisse's posters and also wrote the definitive history of the UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement in the middle 60s. Small world.

The method which is said to be thousands of years old steams food. This  preserves flavor, nutrients, and tenderness.

I've found a very large pressure cooker to be equally useful for steaming, both meats and vegetables, providing the times are carefully controlled. A cup of so of water in the bottom, with a rack to hold the food out of the water, is enough. (A sort of cheaper version of a very expensive professional steam oven.)

Last week I beat a tough old wild goose into submission which had merely been drying out in the oven. Forty-five minutes in the pressure cooker tenderized and re-juiced the bird; a few minutes in a very hot oven crisped up the skin.

I wish I knew who said the "idea of the form precedes the form." Does anyone know?

Lawrencium (103) By Mark Allinson

A snake came to my water-trough

On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

To drink there.

They say that reality exists only in the spirit

that corporal existence is a kind of death

that pure being is bodiless

that the idea of the form precedes the form substantial.

But what nonsense it is!

I am sick of people's cerebral emotions

that are born in their minds and forced down by the will on to their poor deranged bodies.

Why don't people leave off being lovable

or thinking they are lovable, or wanting to be lovable,

and be a bit elemental instead?

This derives perhaps from Emmanuel Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_:

If we review our cognitions in their entire extent, we shall find that the peculiar business of reason is to arrange them into a system, that is to say, to give them connection according to a principle. This unity presupposes an idea- the idea of the form of a whole (of cognition), preceding the determinate cognition of the parts, and containing the conditions which determine a priori to every part its place and relation to the other parts of the whole system.

Edited January 4, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[fifi]

Ok. I am confused about the pot. It is sounding like the geometry and dimensions are the important part of this, along with mass for heat retention. Porosity is not an issue. At least that is what I am getting from this since the glazed pottery bowls can be used. (I have one but I don't know where it is.) How about a Le Creuset pot like this? Without the lid, of course.

edit: to correct the link.

[Jonathan Day]

Linda, the picture your link took me to was a stick blender. Useful, but not for cassoulet!

My impression from cooking in this glazed terracotta is that its porosity is different to that of enamelled cast-iron.

[fifi]

ACK! Here is the link I meant: Click.

[John Whiting]

How about a Le Creuset pot like this? Without the lid, of course.

"This" comes up a stick blender, but I think I know the pot you mean. Glazed cast iron isn't really ideal, but for a cassoulet you're looking at a moderate oven temperature. I think that if you did everything correctly and served the result to an expert, you probably wouldn't get the response, "Aha! You used the wrong pot!" I was certainly happy with the result in a ceramic mixing bowl.

Concerning the seven-fold breaking of the crust: one authority suggests that this was done seven times *before* the bread crumbs are added, and then left undisturbed after the final bake with crumbs and goose fat.

Victoria Wise suggests a wicked enrichment: blend a generous amount of cooked pork fat and garlic and stir it into the final assemblage of beans and meat stews in the cassole. Ideal Alkins diet fare, if only one could come up with a low-carb substitute for the beans!

P.S. My first girl friend when I was ten was a little French girl whose nickname was Fifi. Brings back memories!

EDIT: The shape of the soup pot is very similar to a cassole. I think that with a dish such as this which is cooked uncovered, the porosity of the container is less crucial. The evenness of heat distribution which the clay gives is important, but a modern oven has this quality in itself, particularly if fan-assisted.

Edited January 4, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[fifi]

Sooo... glazed pottery is somewhat porous??? Obviously, Le Creuet is not. I was jus thinking that the geometry of the pot I linked to is pretty much like my glazed pottery bowl.

[Wolfert]

fifi: you are right, I think. It is the shape that is important. The evaporation takes place at the top of the dish slowly, not through the pores of the clay. In fact, a classic cassoule is glazed on the inside and unglazed on the outside. Clay is considered preferable to cast iron because it keeps a slower and lower heat for a longer time.

John: thanks for the quotation.

And, yes, I have the Sales book and it is one of the best of its kind . Unfortunately, it only deals with romertopf type pots.

[Wolfert]

Concerning the seven-fold breaking of the crust: one authority suggests that this was done seven times *before* the bread crumbs are added, and then left undisturbed after the final bake with crumbs and goose fat.

Victoria Wise suggests a wicked enrichment: blend a generous amount of cooked pork fat and garlic and stir it into the final assemblage of beans and meat stews in the cassole. Ideal Alkins diet fare, if only one could come up with a low-carb substitute for the beans!

P.S. My first girl friend when I was ten was a little French girl whose nickname was Fifi. Brings back memories!

[Wolfert]

Sorry, I still haven't learned to " do quotes" properly..

John: You are right. Most cooks I know in southwest France use the 'up to seven stirs' method before adding the final breadcrumbs (if they bother to use breadcrumbs at all). The idea of the glazed beans, in an uncovered pot, stirred up and through the dish provides an added flavor. This is why the wider the pot at the top is desirable. You get more glaze for your work.

the adding of fat, parsley and garlic is another last minute addition. It is, I think, called a hachis. Not only is it added to cassoulet but a simple tangle of grilled asparagus and mushrooms.

Edited January 4, 2004 by Wolfert (log)