Cooking with 'The Cooking of Southwest France'

[Abra]

Fresh favas are just coming in here, and in another couple of weeks they should be perfect. But I've never seen them frozen, and see no reason why frozen wouldn't make a perfect ragout. Never seen them shucked either.

I just used up the last of my 6 month-old duck confit, so I guess it's time to get some more started. Of course, then it won't be ready until favas are long out of season, but if they come frozen, no problem!

[FoodMan]

I like the frozen fava suggestion.  I was in a cassoulet mood this weekend (more to come) and thought about making the fava cassoulet, but at $4/lb for the unshucked pods I opted to stick with the Tarbais beans I already had soaking...

What type of duck did you use for your confit?

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I used Pekin duck legs for my confit Mark.

Frozen favas are so worth it here in Houston, since the only "fresh" ones are -if found- limp, droopy, bitter and so overpriced! The peeled frozen ones from Whole Foods or a middle eastern store need nothing more than shucking and that's easy enough.

I am planning on making the fava cassoulet because of them.

BTW, dinner tonight is the pork with red beans and carrots from this book. more to come later.

[Marc Olson]

For several months I've been trying to find the time to make a cassoulet using my new cassole from Clay Coyote and the duck confit that's been nestled in the fridge since January. Saturday night I put two pounds of Tarbais beans on to soak and then set out to make 'cassoulet-in-a-day' using the 'middle' recipe from TCoSWF (I forget the actual title). I took pictures and will include them below (at the assembly stage and beyond).

Sunday morning at 7:30 I started making my shopping list. Despite having the soaked beans, I was intrigued by the fava bean cassoulet so I made two lists of ingredients and would decide once I got to Whole Foods.

With fresh favas at $4/lb unhusked I quickly decided that I'd go with the second recipe. Having not planned ahead I was unable to procure pigs knuckle or pork bones in any form, so I ended up buying bonless shoulder and 1/2 a rack of St. Louis style ribs (the breast half). As an experiment I also picked up three lamb blade steaks to add to the mix.

Back home around 9 and starting to cook. Onions in the big cast iron, stock out of the freezer and thawing in the big pot, trimming and salting the meat. Once the onions were done I browned the pork, lamb and ribs in three batches and added them to the pot along with the balance of the ingredients. After an hour-ish I brought the beans to the boil and added them to the ragout. Another hour later the beans seemed to be making no progress but the lamb and pork shoulder were tender so I removed them from the beans, leaving the ribs for another hour. Beans were still not done--in the end they took nearly four hours to cook instead of the expected two. I guess I have some Old Beans. Ribs came out after about three hours.

Meanwhile I heated the confit. I'd cooked it sous vide in bags of four, so I simply heated the bags in water and then snipped the bags and drained/separated the fat from the duck juices. The juices went into the bean pot (I checked and it needed salt, probably because I wasn't able to salt the meat the night before) and I reserved some of the fat for finishing and prepped the rest to go back into the freezer.

As the meats cooled I separated and shredded them in preparation for the final assembly...if the beans would ever get done!

Finally around 2:00 in the afternoon the beans were done. I added the garlic puree, then the reserved meats, assembled the ragout-confit-ragout into the cassole.

Put it into a cold oven (set to 325 but not preheated) to start the alchemy.

At 3:00 we left for a couple of hours and at 5 I stirred the skin, added the garlic sausage and bread crumbs (more than required, but I put some stock in with them at the same time).

At 6:30 we took it out of the oven and feasted. It was the best cassoulet I've ever made!

We're still eating it this week (makes a great breakfast) and I'm already planning to get some confit started so that when the urge strikes I'll be ready.

The fava cassoulet will probably be next given the tips earlier in this thread on how to get fresh/frozen favas.

<edited to add pictures>

Edited May 10, 2006 by Marc Olson (log)

[Abra]

Sounds great, and I'm looking forward to your pictures, Marc.

I think the salt on the meat may have caused your bean problems. You really don't want to salt your beans until they're almost done, or they seem to stay hard forever. In fact, with a little bean like lentils, it's good to salt them immediately excactly so they don't get all soft and mushy.

edited to say: And now that you've posted your pictures, I've got to say: it looks just super. Beautiful cassole, too. I've been trying to talk myself into getting one. If only I had twice the cupboard space!

Edited May 10, 2006 by Abra (log)

[Chufi]

One of my friends just brought me the book as a belated birthday present. I'm so excited and can't wait to start cooking from it.. I've been following this thread and have seen so many wonderful dishes.

Now, where to start..

[FoodMan]

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These have to be my favorite cassoulet pics of all time! Look at that awsome crust. Did you serve anything with it Marc? bread, salad, wine...

[Chufi]

So, I just cut up my Very First Duck, using the method Paula Wolfert describes in the book. Not as hard as I thought and actually quite satisfying.

The breasts will be dinner tonight, the legs will probably go in the freezer, I am right now roasting the carcass to make stock. And I rendered the fat & skin.

Now I am very much a duckfat novice, and I have a question. I think my duck was quite lean (no idea what type of duck, just the only one my market was selling). After rendering the fat in the microwave I ended up with this:

I poured off the 'clean' fat on top so now I have this:

Is the stuff in the second bowl, the cloudy stuff, good for anything? Should it be added to the duckfat or not?

Also, I got about 3/4 cup fat from this duck. Is that a reasonable amount or was this duck indeed not very fatty?

[Wolfert]

I think you have a very tasty Muscovy duck. There are lots of recipes and notes in the book for handling that breed.

The foamy fat is good for simple sauteeing. It is fragile and its shelf life is short..

[Chufi]

Thank you Paula for your advice.. the foamy fat is now in my fridge, I will use it for sauteeing until it starts to smell funny..

Tonight I made the salad of duck confit with red cabbage, chestnuts and watercress. Only, instead of duck confit, I used smoked duckbreast made with my new stovetop smoker

It was so good. The red cabbage alone (marinated in walnut oil, red wine, and vinegar) was good enough to eat just by itself. I can only imagine that this will be even better with the sweet nutty flavor of duck confit to accompany it..

(the duck looks disconcertingly pink, but that's just the red cabbage juice that I drizzled over)

I also made the straw potato cake with braised leeks.

it was really good and together with the salad, it was a delicious meal.

[hathor]

One of my friends just brought me the book as a belated birthday present. I'm so excited and can't wait to start cooking from it.. I've been following this thread and have seen so many wonderful dishes.

Now, where to start.. 

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Go for the poussin with the garlic/lemon cream...its amazing!!!

Beautiful straw potato cake!

[Chufi]

Tonight I made the Correze garlic soup. Which was as delicious as everybody said it was.

I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It makes great bed-time reading!

[Chufi]

BTW, dinner tonight is the pork with red beans and carrots from this book. more to come later.

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Elie how did that dish turn out? I'm thinking of making it this week.

[FoodMan]

BTW, dinner tonight is the pork with red beans and carrots from this book. more to come later.

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Elie how did that dish turn out? I'm thinking of making it this week.

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Me and my lazy self....it turned out great. I just need to find time and remember to post the picture and some comments. Hopefully tonight.

[Chufi]

Good to hear you liked it.

I'll be soaking the beans tonight, cooking the dish tomorrow, and serve Wednesday.

Most of the recipes in this book really call for multiday-planning.. no good waking up and thinking "oh I feel like rabbit compote for dinner tonight.. wait I should have started cooking 3 days ago"

[Abra]

I absolutely loved that pork and beans dish. I used Rancho Gordo beans, some duck fat, and managed to get some home-cured bacon into it as well. It was really fabulous.

[Marc Olson]

These have to be my favorite cassoulet pics of all time! Look at that awsome crust. Did you serve anything with it Marc? bread, salad, wine...

Elie--glad you enjoyed the pictures!

We served the cassoulet with grilled asparagus, baguette and a '99 Voge Cornas "La Vielles Fontaines".

Time to make some confit so that I can do another round.

[FoodMan]

Ok, here is the lovely bean dish from last week. Technically it is not THAT late since we ate it over about three days into the weekend, and yes it kept on getting better

Like Abra I also used some lovely homemade Pancetta in this dish, and I actually made it after seeing her picture of it. Cooking the beans in red wine for hours has a stunning effect on the texture. They turn wonderfully soft but never loose their structure or turn mushy as you can see in the pic. I did drizzle a bit more vinegar on my portion than the recipe asks for, but then I love the tangy flavor more than most. What was surprising about this one is with all the different healthy amounts of fat that go into it, it is not in the least bit greasy or cloying. I did not even have to de-grease it after a night in the fridge. We served it with a simple green salad dressed in walnut oil and raspberry vinegar and sliced rustic homebaked bread slathered with duck fat and rubbed with garlic. Winter or summer, this dish is an ultimate comfort food.

[Abra]

Awesome. I hate to say it, but I think the reason you don't need to degrease the dish is because the beans have politely absorbed all the fat. But good for you, adding even more walnut oil and duck fat to your plate, lest there be a fat deficit!

I really like the look of yours better than mine - you have bigger carrots, bigger meat chunks, and it's more liquidy.

[FoodMan]

Awesome.  I hate to say it, but I think the reason you don't need to degrease the dish is because the beans have politely absorbed all the fat.  But good for you, adding even more walnut oil and duck fat to your plate, lest there be a fat deficit!

I really like the look of yours better than mine - you have bigger carrots, bigger meat chunks, and it's more liquidy.

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Fat deficit is a bad thing indeed , and I'm finding that I am getting addicted to walnut oil (I use a California brand) and drizzle it on lots of stuff.

The recipe says to cut the meat in large chunks, so I stuck to it and I think it is a good idea since it cooks for a loooong time. As for the liquidy thing, it is sort of my choice. I like my beans like that instead of drier, so I removed them from the oven earlier than recommended, basically as soon as they developed a crust on top.

edit: tupo...oops typos

[hathor]

Every time I open this thread, it automatically opens to Marc's cassolet pictures, apparently my computer is chanelling/feeding my obssession for that wonderful crock.......

[Chufi]

here's my pork with red beans and carrots..

when it just came out of the oven:

and on the plate

it was really really good.. I had 2 friends for dinner and they kept on saying how good it was.. such a beautiful complex flavor.

I did sprinkle it with walnut oil, brandy (no Armagnac in the house) and red wine vinegar and I thought that was a lovely touch.

I'll be making this again cause it's cheap, utterly delicious, and fairly simple to make.. it takes a long time to cook, but it's not complicated. Wonderful!

[Ling]

That looks beautiful and delicious!

[Chufi]

We had the leftovers yesterday. The curious thing was that the flavor of the cloves had become much more pronounced, even though I had removed the clove-studded onion.

I added some water when reheating, because the beans seemed to have absorbed most of the liquid.

Overall, I would say that I liked both flavor and texture of the dish better on the day that it was cooked, which is kind of weird for a braise? Not that it wasn't good yesterday.. but 3 days ago, it wasn't good, it was divine.

[Chufi]

I have some friends coming over for dinner this weekend.. these our are 'eating friends' who really enjoy good food.. they gave me the book for my birthday and I want to cook them a whole dinner from it.

I'm planning to make the rabbit compote, the chicken breasts with chard/giblet stuffing and the gateau Basque.

I have seen wine suggestions for the rabbit compote on this thread.. but I could really use a recommendation for a wine to go with the chicken. I would prefer white because it's going to be warm and humid this weekend.

Any other suggestions to improve this menu are also welcome! (like, should I serve anything with/ after the chicken?)

[Chufi]

I posted about the dinner on the Dinner!thread but thought I'd post with some more detailed comments here.

So, this weekend I made the rabbit compote with prunes:

It was very light and refreshing, the rabbit meat was really juicy and almost sweet in flavor. It was very good and my guests loved it, but I had somehow expected a more complex flavor. However, the compote was only 2 days old yesterday, so I probably should taste the leftovers tonight and see if the flavor improves like Elie mentioned upthread.

Blanc de poulet farci comme en Auvergne: chickenbreast in cabbageleaves, with a swiss chard/giblet/ham stuffing. This dish had caught my eye when I first browsed through the book and I really wanted to make it, even though I could not picture in my mind what it would end up like or taste like.

I have to say the giblet /ham stuffing did not look to appetizing after puree-ing it .. also, the stuffing remained very wet even after refrigerating it over night, and there was no way I could "enclose the chicken breast in it" like the recipe says. So I just put some stuffing on a cabbage leaf, chicken on top, topped with more stuffing, and rolled up the leaves. Rolling them was very fiddly.. my leaves kept tearing, especially when I was was tying them up with string. I think the suggestion to tie them in cheesecloth is a good one, but I did not have cheesecloths so I struggled on till I had this:

I used up all my cabbage leaves on 3 chickenbreasts, but that was plenty for the 4 of us.

I'm describing this in such detail because the endresult was so delicious that I would really urge anyone to try this.. it was worth the trouble. The chicken comes out as moist as I've never seen a chicken breast, the vegetables are cooked to perfection in the stock, and the stuffing gives just the right rich and herby balance for the light stock and the clean flavors of the cabbage and vegetables.

I drizzled some walnut oil on top and sprinkled with fleur de sel. Very, very good.

I also made the Gateau Basque. The pastry is indeed very fragile and a bit difficult to work with. I ended up just pressing it into my tin, which worked okay. Although I used an 8 " tin as specified, I had a lot of pastry left over.

That Basque aromatic mixture is something realy special. I used a little less orangeflowerwater because I was afraid it would be overpowering (I like the stuff, but only in tiny amounts). I suggest mixing and tasting till it is to your liking. It delicately perfumed the entire cake, both pastry cream and pastry, in an almost elusive way. I thought it was like a fairy-tale cake!

I liked the idea of the cherry preserves, but did not want to put them in the cake, so I made a little compote of fresh cherries to serve with the cake.