All About Cassoulet

[zora]

Yeah, I'll definitely draw it out longer next time--I was doing it over one weekend. But I like the idea of giving the confit a week or so to age...and giving the air a chance to clear!

Re: dried beans...there's just no way to know how old they are, is there? I mean, if you're not buying them from someone who's v. close to the source...

[Batard]

Re: dried beans...there's just no way to know how old they are, is there?  I mean, if you're not buying them from someone who's v. close to the source...

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I usually just buy them from the containers at Whole Food, not in the plastic bags at the supermarket. My assumption is that a.) WF will make an effort to keep the quality high, and b.) they have a pretty quick product turnover. We go through quite a few beans in my house, and at WF they are consistently very good quality.

I would also say that they are priced well, but if you are going to make ~real~ cassoulet you are probably not worried about the cost. Costs a fortune to make ...

[Abra]

Buy your beans from Rancho Gordo and you'll always have fresh beans, not to mention the most delicious beans ever.

[Jon Savage]

Buy your beans from Rancho Gordo and you'll always have fresh beans, not to mention the most delicious beans ever.

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I had no idea how good beans could taste until I got some from Rancho Gordo.

[Eden]

you might try one of the cassoulet variations that includes tomato paste. I find them much better & richer tasting in general.

[kitwilliams]

Buy your beans from Rancho Gordo and you'll always have fresh beans, not to mention the most delicious beans ever.

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I had no idea how good beans could taste until I got some from Rancho Gordo.

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Ditto on Rancho Gordo. I am seeing some of his (yours, if you're reading, Steve!) beans in local shops and have worried about the freshness factor...but I probably shouldn't. Which of Rancho Gordo's beans have you all used for cassoulet, folks?

[Chris Amirault]

Flageolet.

[Lapin d'Argent]

Buy your beans from Rancho Gordo and you'll always have fresh beans, not to mention the most delicious beans ever.

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Ditto, ditto, ditto! I'm sure there are other good sources for good beans, but Steve is my go-to, since I don't happen to know of any others.

I wasn't much of a bean fan, either -- until I found Rancho Gordo beans and learned just how good real beans could be.

Making a cassoulet is on my list of 2009 resolutions! But I have learned by experience that nothing tastes good when I'm exhausted...so I agree with Chris that it's best to stretch things out over time.

- L.

[MarkinHouston]

Buy your beans from Rancho Gordo and you'll always have fresh beans, not to mention the most delicious beans ever.

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I had no idea how good beans could taste until I got some from Rancho Gordo.

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Ditto on Rancho Gordo. I am seeing some of his (yours, if you're reading, Steve!) beans in local shops and have worried about the freshness factor...but I probably shouldn't. Which of Rancho Gordo's beans have you all used for cassoulet, folks?

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I have used the Rancho Gordo flageolets, and I have toted a few kilos of lingots from Sarlat (where they swore that lingot, not Tarbais beans, are the best), and i have used teh Rancho Gordo runner cannelinis. They were all good, but the runner cannelimis are the best beans I have ever eaten. Period.

[Ptipois]

I think the local coop near Tarbes has done an excellent marketing job with the Tarbais bean.

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That is precisely what I was trying to say without saying it plainly...

Another good example is piment d'Espelette (not on the head please, as a matter of fact the topic is taboo in France).

[Dave Hatfield]

I think the local coop near Tarbes has done an excellent marketing job with the Tarbais bean.

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That is precisely what I was trying to say without saying it plainly...

Another good example is piment d'Espelette (not on the head please, as a matter of fact the topic is taboo in France).

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Agreed. Rancho Gordo's pretty good at it too.

Still the naive and gullible listen. buy and believe.

Who am I to talk having been a marketeer for many years albeit in high tech where your BS has to be real.

[muichoi]

I have a great passion for cassoulet and have made and eaten it every which way. In the end it's about the beans-and I prefer for myself a pared down version made with pork belly and extra rind, a little slightly rancid cured belly, aromatic vegetables, duck fat and good stock as the only additional ingredients. All those extra delicious meats ultimately just distract from the real business for me-though I only serve this version to family.

[Shalmanese]

I've eaten cassoulet 3 times and made it once and I've never been too impressed with it. This thread has inspired me to try it again.

[MarkinHouston]

I think the local coop near Tarbes has done an excellent marketing job with the Tarbais bean.

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That is precisely what I was trying to say without saying it plainly...

Another good example is piment d'Espelette (not on the head please, as a matter of fact the topic is taboo in France).

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Agreed. Rancho Gordo's pretty good at it too.

Still the naive and gullible listen. buy and believe.

Who am I to talk having been a marketeer for many years albeit in high tech where your BS has to be real.

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After suffering misadventures with second-rate products, there are some who through experience have found a reliable source for what passes as a basic commodity to those living in France. I for one do not consider myself either naive or gullible. The belief comes from results.

[Dave Hatfield]

I think the local coop near Tarbes has done an excellent marketing job with the Tarbais bean.

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That is precisely what I was trying to say without saying it plainly...

Another good example is piment d'Espelette (not on the head please, as a matter of fact the topic is taboo in France).

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Agreed. Rancho Gordo's pretty good at it too.

Still the naive and gullible listen. buy and believe.

Who am I to talk having been a marketeer for many years albeit in high tech where your BS has to be real.

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After suffering misadventures with second-rate products, there are some who through experience have found a reliable source for what passes as a basic commodity to those living in France. I for one do not consider myself either naive or gullible. The belief comes from results.

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Well I certainly agree that if you have a proven source then stick with it.

My personal experience when we last lived in the states (California, then Chicago, then Rhode Island) was that if I looked at sell by dates I could get perfectly good beans, usually Great Northerns, in most supermarkets. Whole Foods normally came up trumps.

My point & I think Pti's was that there's a lot of hype in the food industry. Tarbais & Piment are just a couple here in France that have 'captured' attention & are managing to get a premium for their product. More power to them, but that doesn't mean I need to pay over the odds for their product in order to make in this case a good cassoulet.

I've been making cassoulet for over 20 years and am now finally happy with my recipe.I'd probably have to change it if we moved back to the states. Doesn't mean that others don't have an equally good recipe using Tarbais, Rancho Gordo or whatever. After all the beans are only one of the ingredients, an important one, but still only part of a complex taste experience.

You can find a fully illustrated recipe for my version over on my new website mentioned below.

[Ptipois]

My personal experience when we last lived in the states (California, then Chicago, then Rhode Island) was that if I looked at sell by dates I could get perfectly good beans, usually Great Northerns, in most supermarkets. Whole Foods normally came up trumps.

My point & I think Pti's was that there's a lot of hype in the food industry. Tarbais & Piment are just a couple here in France that have 'captured' attention & are managing to get a premium for their product. More power to them, but that doesn't mean I need to pay over the odds for their product in order to make in this case a good cassoulet.

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The hype in the food industry has grown to fairly large proportions in recent years (at least where I'm writing from, here, in France) but I do believe that, due to the shaky economic times we're entering, even the fashionable discourse will cool down a few degrees and adopt a more down-to-earth approach, of the "good products may be found in the most unexpected places" type (i.e. not where foodie magazines and, er, boards says you should seek them), and also bring back this old principle of "économie domestique": in some cases, perfection is inappropriate. The perfect thing is not always the right thing. The perfect ingredient is not always, and actually seldom is, the right thing to add to a composed dish.

Which does not mean that one should not seek excellent products, as far as their means allow, even for everyday cooking. I do. But I think the next few years will see the return of a few "get real" principles: like, for instance, even grown in the most optimally organic conditions and baked for hours in a salt crust, a beet remains a beet. And what about 12-year-old balsamic vinegar? Yes, 4-year-old balsamic vinegar is very good too. But I have read, a few years ago, in some press articles aimed at the common consumer that they should not settle for less than the 12-year-old.

Going back to cassoulet and beans, I have no experience of using Rancho Gordo beans and I am sure they're good. Be it only for the freshness factor. But cassoulet requires a bit of simplicity, being originally a poor people's dish. All you have to worry about concerning cassoulet is that your beans should be fresh enough to cook right and have the right texture — they should keep their shape and not melt into a purée. Also, and this is a requirement of cassoulet, they should be white-colored. Finally, they shouldn't be too small. French cocos or pea beans are too tiny. Flageolets do the job (as long as they're white flageolets, green ones won't do), as do mojettes, lingots, Great Northern, soissons, tarbais, haricots maïs, gigantes, lima beans, whatever fits the description.

As for piment d'Espelette, the matter is simple. It :

1) Is the product of a steady, forceful marketing campaign led the Basque way (steadily and forcefully) during the late 1990s and early 2000s. I sincerely wonder how it ever got the AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée) when such a wonderful product as the pink onion of Roscoff has tried for decades, to no avail.

2) Has, at best, a mild, slightly fruity flavor and some fire, at worst (and I've seen a lot of the worst) it is as fragrant as orange-dyed sawdust. Besides, it ages badly and gets stale very soon when other chillies keep their flavor longer.

3) Is the chilli pepper of people who don't know anything about chilli peppers (hence its success in France). There is no chilli culture in France (or very little of it). Hence my belief that piment d'Espelette is dear to the heart of the French because it is the only chilli actually grown in France. (To be truthful, there is also Piment des Landes, cheaper but not so chic.)

4) Is the chilli peppper of people who don't like chilli pepper. Similar to point 3.

5) Is likely to get me to have my eyes pulled out by some French foodies or just Southwestern natives if I utter points 1, 2, 3 and 4 publicly. It would be like being in Brittany and saying that Bretons did not invent kouign-amann or something of the sort.

[Abra]

Ok, I'll start the eye-pulling!

I love all sorts of chiles, from the hottest to the mildest, and I use them a lot in cooking. I think piment d'Espelette is particularly wonderful, with a special flavor profile that's similar to Aleppo pepper, warm and fruity. As I learned when I wrote an article about it for the July 2008 issue of Chile Pepper magazine, and for which I travelled to the Pays Basque and observed/interviewed a grower/producer extensively, if you cook with the piment d'Espelette, you're wasting it. You need to sprinkle it into the dish at the very last moment of cooking, or even after cooking, to retain its special flavor and warmth. And you're right that the quality is uneven. Those who want the good stuff would be wise to get it from Biperduna, where a couple of extra steps in the processing make for a really delicious product.

And I love all sorts of beans, and cook with them extensively too. Rancho Gordo's are the best beans I've ever found in the US, and I can't say that I've ever found anything better here in France. That said, I'm with you 100%, P'ti, when you say that Tarbais beans aren't the best for cassoulet. I'd rather use soissons or gigantes here, or RG cannellini in the US. I like the firmer, larger beans, since after all, it's really a bean dish, although it has a tendency to be touted as a meat dish. And a dash of piment d'Espelette sprinkled on a plate of cassoulet is a very good thing too!

[Ptipois]

That's OK Abra, you may give me my eye back since you recall that piment d'Espelette should be sprinkled just before serving - that is indeed the right use for it. You have done some serious research about it and therefore are in the best position to get the real thing. However the quality, as you say, is so uneven that I think it is nearly impossible to get decent espelette in most cases, i.e. anywhere outside of the production region. For instance I have never come across Biperduna in Paris. There's only the red sawdust.

I still think it is not a very interesting chilli, as chillies go.

[MarkinHouston]

I have made cassoulet based on Dave's recipe, and the results were excellent. The first time I used lingots purchased from a Monoprix, and that version was as emmorable as a subsequent episode using RG runner cannelinis. Unfortunately the authenticity of the lingots is somewhat ofset by the current airfares from Houston. I will continue to use Rancho Gordo, but I will still schlepp a duffel bag filled with beans, etc. when I can get back to France.

Hype in the food industry? Certainment! The worst now is BUrger King going to the far corneres of the globe to find burger virgins, so to speak, who would choose them over a McDonalds. Then the filming crew goes wild over the native dishes served after the commercial is ended.

[Abra]

Just to add that everyone can order piment d'Espelette from Biperduna via their website. Tell Maialen I sent you. And no kidding, it's really nice on cassoulet.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Yeah, I was watching something, I forget what where there was a quote: "Cassoulet is stew." "No, it's French stew, and it's better!" "No, it's still just stew." 

 

I agree, though, cassoulet is awesome.

[TdeV]

I have been reading the The Truth About Braising experiment by eGCI (EGullet Culinary Institute). One of the things I've taken away from reading this work is that much food which is braised is better once reheated on the second day.

 

I'm preparing for a pork and duck Cassoulet for tomorrow. The beans are done.

 

Should I bake the cassoulet today, and then reheat it tomorrow? Or bake it tomorrow?

 

[weinoo]

46 minutes ago, TdeV said:

Should I bake the cassoulet today, and then reheat it tomorrow? Or bake it tomorrow?

 

While what you've read about braising/reheating certainly can be true, there is absolutely nothing wrong with baking the cassoulet on the day you're planning on serving it - and then reheat and enjoy the leftovers a day or two later!

[rotuts]

@TdeV 

 

the better-the-next-day

 

re: braise

 

suggests in cooling

 

some of the flavor and moisture

 

that was squeezed out of the meat

 

during the braise

 

might return to the meat 

 

overnight , as it relaxes,

 

thus the meat itself 

 

' improves '

 

as part of the braise

 

 

 

[weinoo]

When I braise, for example a brisket, I'll let the brisket rest overnight in its braising liquid. Slice when cold is much easier anyway, then it gets reheated in the gravy/jus.

 

The thing about @TdeV's question is this: I don't necessarily consider a cassoulet a braise.