The recipe is all together now after various
trials & tribulations. Hopefully it is clear and
easy to follow. Any questions please feel free
to contact me.
OK, here goes. I'm doing my Cassoulette for 15 on Saturday. This post will be in three parts.
Now: Today plus tonight's preparation work.
Tomorrow: I'll put everything together & do the initial cooking.
Saturday: Final cooking & serving.
Today: Linda & I drove down to Castelnaudary to buy our cassole. (as you will see our big green pot won't hold casoulette for 15). The first shop I went into didn't sell cassoles although it looked like they should have. Anyway, they directed me to M. Vigoule's shop which I'd find down the hill on the right side of the square. I couldn't miss it as it was the one with flowers out front. Sure enough there it was; he sells potted plants, animal food, tropical fish, parrots and, yes, cassoles as well as lingots de Tarbias. I chose his largest model of cassole which is very workmanlike but not nearly as beautiful as the one chrisamirault recently got. Here are pictures of my faithful green pot (nearly 20 years old), the new cassole & the two together.
OK, here goes. I'm doing my Cassoulette for 15 on Saturday. This post will be in three parts.
Now: Today plus tonight's preparation work.
Tomorrow: I'll put everything together & do the initial cooking.
Saturday: Final cooking & serving.
Today: Linda & I drove down to Castelnaudary to buy our cassole. (as you will see our big green pot won't hold casoulette for 15). The first shop I went into didn't sell cassoles although it looked like they should have. Anyway, they directed me to M. Vigoule's shop which I'd find down the hill on the right side of the square. I couldn't miss it as it was the one with flowers out front. Sure enough there it was; he sells potted plants, animal food, tropical fish, parrots and, yes, cassoles as well as lingots de Tarbias. I chose his largest model of cassole which is very workmanlike but not nearly as beautiful as the one chrisamirault recently got. Here are pictures of my faithful green pot (nearly 20 years old), the new cassole & the two together.
The Green pot!
New cassole!
Pots together!
While I was there I bought a kilo of lingot de Tarbias which he was selling in bulk. He was insistent that I couldn't make a proper casoulette without them. I'm not sure about that, but the price was right.
Before I get too far with this I'd better give you a 'proper' recipe. Here it is:
Ingredients:
Vegetables
-1 Large yellow onion
-3-4 stalks of celery
-3-4 medium size carrots
Dry & canned goods
-1-2 tubes of tomato purée
-500- 750g of white (lingot) beans
-1-2 cans (4 cuisse to the can) of comfit de canard
Meats
-500-750g fresh Toulouse sausage
-1 large ham hock (jarret) OR 2 smaller lightly salted ham hocks
-4 or more Lamb shanks. If no shanks use bone in Lamb cutlets
Herbs
-1+ head of garlic
-Thyme to taste
-Herbs de Provence to taste
-10+ crushed juniper berries
-Salt & Pepper
Misc.
-Duck fat
-Freshly made bread crumbs
-Chopped parsley
-Walnut oil (about 2 tblsp)
NOTES:
Using the smaller quantities of ingredients this recipe will make a large Casoulette filling my big green pot. If, however, you would like to make more then up the quantities as you wish. (The green crock feeds 8 happily) The Casoulette freezes perfectly.
So, when we got home I laid out my meats.
Lamb shanks, a pork hock & about a pound of Toulouse sausage.
Next I skinned the pork hock as below;
While I was there I bought a kilo of lingot de Tarbias which he was selling in bulk. He was insistent that I couldn't make a proper casoulette without them. I'm not sure about that, but the price was right.
Before I get too far with this I'd better give you a 'proper' recipe. Here it is:
Ingredients:
Vegetables
-1 Large yellow onion
-3-4 stalks of celery
-3-4 medium size carrots
Dry & canned goods
-1-2 tubes of tomato purée
-500- 750g of white (lingot) beans
-1-2 cans (4 cuisse to the can) of comfit de canard
Meats
-500-750g fresh Toulouse sausage
-1 large ham hock (jarret) OR 2 smaller lightly salted ham hocks
-4 or more Lamb shanks. If no shanks use bone in Lamb cutlets
Herbs
-1+ head of garlic
-Thyme to taste
-Herbs de Provence to taste
-10+ crushed juniper berries
-Salt & Pepper
Misc.
-Duck fat
-Freshly made bread crumbs
-Chopped parsley
-Walnut oil (about 2 tblsp)
NOTES:
Using the smaller quantities of ingredients this recipe will make a large Casoulette filling my big green pot. If, however, you would like to make more then up the quantities as you wish. (The green crock feeds 8 happily) The Casoulette freezes perfectly.
So, when we got home I laid out my meats.
Lamb shanks, a pork hock & about a pound of Toulouse sausage.
Next I skinned the pork hock as below;
I was trying to get as little fat or meat as
possible with the skin.
Once the skin was off I cut it into strips & then rough squares. Not too neat as you can see.
Observe the strips both skin & fat side up & the 'squares'. I'll use the three strips in the casoulette & make the remainder into crackling.
Next came the mirapoix preparation as below:
I'm
perfectly aware that few, if any, "classic'
casoulette recipes call for a mirapoix. I think,
however, that adding one in makes a big &
positive difference. The vegetable addition
seems to lighten things a bit without losing any
of the rich meat & bean flavours. I would
contend that the mirapoix adds flavour. "chaque
une a son gout" or something like that as they
say.
Once the skin was off I cut it into strips & then rough squares. Not too neat as you can see.
Observe the strips both skin & fat side up & the 'squares'. I'll use the three strips in the casoulette & make the remainder into crackling.
Next came the mirapoix preparation as below:
I'm
perfectly aware that few, if any, "classic'
casoulette recipes call for a mirapoix. I think,
however, that adding one in makes a big &
positive difference. The vegetable addition
seems to lighten things a bit without losing any
of the rich meat & bean flavours. I would
contend that the mirapoix adds flavour. "chaque
une a son gout" or something like that as they
say.
Next the beans went in the pot to soak overnight. (I don't always do this. You can achieve the desired softening by bringing the beans to a boil from cold, boiling for 15 minutes & then letting them sit in the water for 2-3 hours.) Anyway.
Potted beans.
Close up of beans. (The camera didn't do a good job on the colour.) These Tarbias look just like Great Northerns to me. So far I can't really tell a taste difference. Somebody needs to do a side by side cook off. I'll do the cooking if somebody wants to come over with the beans.)
Finally, tonight I got out the rest of the
ingredients, except for the comfit, and lined
them up ready. 
You can't see the garlic very well because its some scraps I had. Serves as a good reminder to go to the village store first thing in the morning & buy some more.
The only things I haven't shown are: The comfit, fresh thyme, parsley, the juniper berries and the breadcrumbs.
You can't see the garlic very well because its some scraps I had. Serves as a good reminder to go to the village store first thing in the morning & buy some more.
The only things I haven't shown are: The comfit, fresh thyme, parsley, the juniper berries and the breadcrumbs.
Here we are parts #2 & #3
PART #2
1) Start by turning on the heat under the beans. Add the roughly chopped garlic. Also add some salt & pepper, but not much at this stage. Bring them to a boil & let boil for about 5minutes.
2) at the same time put the cut up pork rind into a pan with water & bring it to a boil. Boil for 15-20 minutes.
3) In a large frying pan or, better yet, adeep pot start browning the meats in a small amount of fat (duck or goose fat is best, but olive oil will do nicely). Don't crowd the pan! fry until nicely browned a batch at a time.
4) while this is going on start cooking the sausage. First put the sausage in a large frying pan & add water until the sausage is roughly half covered.
In the picture I've turned the inner ring ofsausage, but not the outer - yet.
Keep boiling until all the water evaporates turning the sausage over about half way through.
Once the water just goes add some fat, not much, and keep cooking until the sausage skin browns nicely. Turn the sausage over as necessary. ( at the same time you are still browning batches of the pork & lamb - right?)
5) Once all the meats are browned turn down the heat & put all of the mirapoix in the pot. Give it a good stir to coat with the fat & cover the pot. The mirapoix should cook slowly for 15-20 minutes, until the carrots are soft & the onions are translucent.
6) Meanwhile you can be cutting up the sausage into bite sized chunks & gettingyour comfit ready.
7) While all this was going on you will have added the tomato paste & the herbs de Provence, thyme & juniper berries to the beans. The amount of each is up to your personal taste. I'm fairly heavy handed, but you may prefer a lighter touch.
8) When ready add the cooked mirapoix to the beans. You are now ready for the assembly!
9) Assembly. (I'll try to make the pictures work for this.)
a) Using a slotted spoon add some beans to the cassole or whatever pot you are using.
b) add the pork hock
c) Add more beans & some sausage.
d) Add the lamb shanks and the pork rind.
e) More beans & sausage.
Then
the comfit.
f) Final layer of beans!
g) Now add liquid from the bean pot to cover everything.
h) Ready for the oven!!!
Put the casoulette into a 375 degree oven (about 165 C) for 2-3 hours. After about 1 1/2 hours pull it out & check the consistency of the beans. They should start to be a bit soft. Press down the top, take a spoonful of juice & check seasoning. Add salt & pepper as needed.
Repeat this procedure about every half hour until the beans are just soft to bite.
Take the casoulette out of the oven, let it cool then put it in the fridge (or anywhere cold, but not freezing) overnight.
Part #3
No much here, but here are the final steps.
1) take the casoulette out of the fridge about 4-5 hours before your planned serving time.
2) make 2-3 cups of bread crumbs. I like to use sour dough French bread, but any will do. I also like to add herbs de Provence & garlic granules to the crumbs, but that's strictly optional.
3) Pre-heat the oven to about 375 (165C).
4) put the casoulette in about 2 hours before the planned serving time.
5) about one hour before serving time spread the bread crumbs over the top of the casoulette fairly evenly & press down slightly. (Note: the casoulette will probably have formed a crust by this time. If so, press this down firmly before spreading the bread crumbs.
6) Watch to make sure that the crumbs are browning nicely. If not a little top heat from the broiler will do the trick, but be careful. Better a light brown crust than a burnt one.
Take the casoulette out & serve. Make sure to dig in as you serve to get a bit of each layer.
We found that our new cassole, filled to the brim as you could see in the pictures, gave us 15 nice portions. - just! There was none left.
Fortunately, we had made a second casoulette in our faithful old green pot since about ten out of the 15 wanted seconds! We have just enough left to freeze for a nice future dinner for the two of us + a bit for Rupert.
PART #2
1) Start by turning on the heat under the beans. Add the roughly chopped garlic. Also add some salt & pepper, but not much at this stage. Bring them to a boil & let boil for about 5minutes.
2) at the same time put the cut up pork rind into a pan with water & bring it to a boil. Boil for 15-20 minutes.
3) In a large frying pan or, better yet, adeep pot start browning the meats in a small amount of fat (duck or goose fat is best, but olive oil will do nicely). Don't crowd the pan! fry until nicely browned a batch at a time.
4) while this is going on start cooking the sausage. First put the sausage in a large frying pan & add water until the sausage is roughly half covered.
In the picture I've turned the inner ring ofsausage, but not the outer - yet.
Keep boiling until all the water evaporates turning the sausage over about half way through.
Once the water just goes add some fat, not much, and keep cooking until the sausage skin browns nicely. Turn the sausage over as necessary. ( at the same time you are still browning batches of the pork & lamb - right?)
5) Once all the meats are browned turn down the heat & put all of the mirapoix in the pot. Give it a good stir to coat with the fat & cover the pot. The mirapoix should cook slowly for 15-20 minutes, until the carrots are soft & the onions are translucent.
6) Meanwhile you can be cutting up the sausage into bite sized chunks & gettingyour comfit ready.
7) While all this was going on you will have added the tomato paste & the herbs de Provence, thyme & juniper berries to the beans. The amount of each is up to your personal taste. I'm fairly heavy handed, but you may prefer a lighter touch.
8) When ready add the cooked mirapoix to the beans. You are now ready for the assembly!
9) Assembly. (I'll try to make the pictures work for this.)
a) Using a slotted spoon add some beans to the cassole or whatever pot you are using.
b) add the pork hock
c) Add more beans & some sausage.
d) Add the lamb shanks and the pork rind.
e) More beans & sausage.
Then
the comfit.f) Final layer of beans!
g) Now add liquid from the bean pot to cover everything.
h) Ready for the oven!!!
Put the casoulette into a 375 degree oven (about 165 C) for 2-3 hours. After about 1 1/2 hours pull it out & check the consistency of the beans. They should start to be a bit soft. Press down the top, take a spoonful of juice & check seasoning. Add salt & pepper as needed.
Repeat this procedure about every half hour until the beans are just soft to bite.
Take the casoulette out of the oven, let it cool then put it in the fridge (or anywhere cold, but not freezing) overnight.
Part #3
No much here, but here are the final steps.
1) take the casoulette out of the fridge about 4-5 hours before your planned serving time.
2) make 2-3 cups of bread crumbs. I like to use sour dough French bread, but any will do. I also like to add herbs de Provence & garlic granules to the crumbs, but that's strictly optional.
3) Pre-heat the oven to about 375 (165C).
4) put the casoulette in about 2 hours before the planned serving time.
5) about one hour before serving time spread the bread crumbs over the top of the casoulette fairly evenly & press down slightly. (Note: the casoulette will probably have formed a crust by this time. If so, press this down firmly before spreading the bread crumbs.
6) Watch to make sure that the crumbs are browning nicely. If not a little top heat from the broiler will do the trick, but be careful. Better a light brown crust than a burnt one.
Take the casoulette out & serve. Make sure to dig in as you serve to get a bit of each layer.
We found that our new cassole, filled to the brim as you could see in the pictures, gave us 15 nice portions. - just! There was none left.
Fortunately, we had made a second casoulette in our faithful old green pot since about ten out of the 15 wanted seconds! We have just enough left to freeze for a nice future dinner for the two of us + a bit for Rupert.
Cassoulete? Was it real?
I ended my last
post mentioning making a cassoulete with
Louise. Now given my persinikityness about
cassoulete I have to ask if this effort was a
real cassoulete or just a fancy bean stew. I'm
going to describe how Louise & I made it and
let you be the judge.
First, Louise went shopping for ingredients. She got a nice ham hock, 3 lamb shanks and a pound of local sausage. (The local sausage seemed to have quite a bit of filler in it & wasn't as good as an all meat Toulouse sausage.) We had brought over a large can of duck confit from France. (I actually prefer to use the canned confit even though I can buy individual pieces or easily make my own when at home in France. Normally the canned stuff is nice & tender and you get quite a lot of extra high quality dick fat.) Louise found some nice dry white beans, not lingots or tarbais, but they were fine. We had the rest of the ingredients available; vegetables for the mirepoix, tomato puree and our herbs. Not to mention a bit of strong red wine.
So, we browned all of the meats, boiled the beans in lots of water for 15 minutes then added garlic (1 head) and the puree to that pot. We sweated the mirepoix for about 20 minutes then added it and the herbs (juniper berries, thyme & herbs de provence) to the bean pot. We let everything rest for half an hour then started our assembly.
Now here was a problem. We didn't have a cassole or other large crock. We also were limited by the oven height of Louise's AGA cooker. The solution was a deep stock pot that just fit the oven with it's lid off. We covered it with foil fot the first cooking. We built up the layers of meat & beans finishing off with the confit. We'd got the bean liquid abour right & only had to add about 1/3 bottle of wine to cover. Into the oven it went for about 3 hours.
The 'cassoulete' then came out & rested for a few hours. It then went back into the oven, uncovered. After about 45 minutes it came out & got its first bread crumb topping. After another half hour, when the crumbs were browned nicely, we pushed the crumbs down into the pot and added the second crumb layer. When this was nicely browned we were ready to eat.
The dish was delicious, all 8 of us throughly enjoyed it. Was it a cassoulete? Well, the ingredients were all there for a classic dish. We could have used a better sausage and the bean to meat ratio was a bit off; we needed more beans. It turned out that the lack of a big earthen ware pot didn't seem to matter from a taste point of view. Of course the presentation wasn't nearly as nice, but it looked good once on the plate.
You be the judge. Sorry that I didn't take any pictures, but you can use your imagination.
I'll be interested to hear any opinions.
First, Louise went shopping for ingredients. She got a nice ham hock, 3 lamb shanks and a pound of local sausage. (The local sausage seemed to have quite a bit of filler in it & wasn't as good as an all meat Toulouse sausage.) We had brought over a large can of duck confit from France. (I actually prefer to use the canned confit even though I can buy individual pieces or easily make my own when at home in France. Normally the canned stuff is nice & tender and you get quite a lot of extra high quality dick fat.) Louise found some nice dry white beans, not lingots or tarbais, but they were fine. We had the rest of the ingredients available; vegetables for the mirepoix, tomato puree and our herbs. Not to mention a bit of strong red wine.
So, we browned all of the meats, boiled the beans in lots of water for 15 minutes then added garlic (1 head) and the puree to that pot. We sweated the mirepoix for about 20 minutes then added it and the herbs (juniper berries, thyme & herbs de provence) to the bean pot. We let everything rest for half an hour then started our assembly.
Now here was a problem. We didn't have a cassole or other large crock. We also were limited by the oven height of Louise's AGA cooker. The solution was a deep stock pot that just fit the oven with it's lid off. We covered it with foil fot the first cooking. We built up the layers of meat & beans finishing off with the confit. We'd got the bean liquid abour right & only had to add about 1/3 bottle of wine to cover. Into the oven it went for about 3 hours.
The 'cassoulete' then came out & rested for a few hours. It then went back into the oven, uncovered. After about 45 minutes it came out & got its first bread crumb topping. After another half hour, when the crumbs were browned nicely, we pushed the crumbs down into the pot and added the second crumb layer. When this was nicely browned we were ready to eat.
The dish was delicious, all 8 of us throughly enjoyed it. Was it a cassoulete? Well, the ingredients were all there for a classic dish. We could have used a better sausage and the bean to meat ratio was a bit off; we needed more beans. It turned out that the lack of a big earthen ware pot didn't seem to matter from a taste point of view. Of course the presentation wasn't nearly as nice, but it looked good once on the plate.
You be the judge. Sorry that I didn't take any pictures, but you can use your imagination.
I'll be interested to hear any opinions.
Does Cassoulet have a soul?
Every fall one of the
things I look forward to is the first
Cassoulet of the year. Its become a yearly
ritual since we moved to France to have a
Cassoulet lunch with lots of friends every
year. Sometimes it just lunch, sometimes we
organize a country walk before lunch so as
to have a 'proper' appetite for the
Cassoulet. We're fortunate in that there are
lovely walks you can take straight from our
house. One of the advantages of country
living, I guess.
In any case this year there were 14 of us for the Cassoulet. Six of whom were visitors from the states & England. Thus it was two, not one, cassouletes that I made. Now I do enjoy the whole process of making a Cassoulet, it somehow epitomizes to me the essence of country cooking :French country cooking in particular. Thus I make my Cassoulet slowly and carefully taking my time over each step. The recipe is my own developed over years of experience (There is a pictorial version of my recipe earlier in this blog), but true to the origins and the ingredients of the dish which are not far away here in South West France. Thus, it has duck, pork in various guises, white beans, tomato and so forth. In my case I add lamb as well which is a more Northerly variation.
Now, there are nearly as many Cassoulet recipes as there are Cassoulet makers and I'm all for variation and updating, deconstructing and all that. BUT, I do think that in a dish like Cassoulet there are proprieties to be observed. By all means do what you wish, but don't go too far and still call it Cassoulet. Call it whatever you like. (for example; I recently saw a "Cassoulet" made with canned Spanish beans. NO, please call it Spanish bean soup or something else, not Cassoulet)
Which leads me to my original point; does Cassoulet have a soul? In my opinion yes. One brings together a set of ingredients, a method of preparing and cooking and love and care as one does it so that what emerges is a dish with soul. The dish becomes evocative of a place and a society. It has soul because you put your soul into it as you go through the creative process which produces this dish.
I would contend that given the wherewithal I could make a Cassoulet and serve it anywhere in the world and evoke in the eaters who had been to SW France a sense of that place. And for those who had never visited France a slight glimmering of what France and the South West in particular is all about.
By now, hopefully, you will have realized that I'm using Cassoulet as a metaphor for those many things that identify a country, region, society. It could be steak & kidney pie in England or Osso Bucco in Italy whatever. It need not be food; a French cafe is as surely only French as an English pub is English. These symbols identify a culture.
Which sort of leads me to where I want to end up. That is with a plea to respect those symbols that identify a culture. Listen, observe, partake and above all feel what is symbolic of that culture. Only then will you begin to understand that culture, begin to appreciate it and begin to feel comfortable in it. It s worth the effort - believe me.
Make a Cassoulet or your favorite evocative dish. Do it with care and love and I think you will agree with me: Yes, a Cassoulet does have soul.
In any case this year there were 14 of us for the Cassoulet. Six of whom were visitors from the states & England. Thus it was two, not one, cassouletes that I made. Now I do enjoy the whole process of making a Cassoulet, it somehow epitomizes to me the essence of country cooking :French country cooking in particular. Thus I make my Cassoulet slowly and carefully taking my time over each step. The recipe is my own developed over years of experience (There is a pictorial version of my recipe earlier in this blog), but true to the origins and the ingredients of the dish which are not far away here in South West France. Thus, it has duck, pork in various guises, white beans, tomato and so forth. In my case I add lamb as well which is a more Northerly variation.
Now, there are nearly as many Cassoulet recipes as there are Cassoulet makers and I'm all for variation and updating, deconstructing and all that. BUT, I do think that in a dish like Cassoulet there are proprieties to be observed. By all means do what you wish, but don't go too far and still call it Cassoulet. Call it whatever you like. (for example; I recently saw a "Cassoulet" made with canned Spanish beans. NO, please call it Spanish bean soup or something else, not Cassoulet)
Which leads me to my original point; does Cassoulet have a soul? In my opinion yes. One brings together a set of ingredients, a method of preparing and cooking and love and care as one does it so that what emerges is a dish with soul. The dish becomes evocative of a place and a society. It has soul because you put your soul into it as you go through the creative process which produces this dish.
I would contend that given the wherewithal I could make a Cassoulet and serve it anywhere in the world and evoke in the eaters who had been to SW France a sense of that place. And for those who had never visited France a slight glimmering of what France and the South West in particular is all about.
By now, hopefully, you will have realized that I'm using Cassoulet as a metaphor for those many things that identify a country, region, society. It could be steak & kidney pie in England or Osso Bucco in Italy whatever. It need not be food; a French cafe is as surely only French as an English pub is English. These symbols identify a culture.
Which sort of leads me to where I want to end up. That is with a plea to respect those symbols that identify a culture. Listen, observe, partake and above all feel what is symbolic of that culture. Only then will you begin to understand that culture, begin to appreciate it and begin to feel comfortable in it. It s worth the effort - believe me.
Make a Cassoulet or your favorite evocative dish. Do it with care and love and I think you will agree with me: Yes, a Cassoulet does have soul.