A Small Cassoulet Food

TRADITIONAL FRENCH CASSOULET RECIPE

Steps:

• In a large bowl, cover beans with 3 quarts water and add salt. Stir to combine and let sit at room temperature overnight. Drain and rinse beans and set aside.
• Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 300°F (150°C). Place stock in a large liquid measuring cup and sprinkle gelatin over the top. Set aside. Heat duck fat (if using) in a large Dutch oven over high heat until shimmering. Add salt pork and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned all over, about 8 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a large bowl, leaving rendered fat in Dutch oven, and set aside. (If not using duck fat, cook pork with no additional fat.)
• Season chicken pieces with pepper (do not add salt) and place skin side down in now-empty pan. Cook without moving until well-browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Flip chicken pieces and continue cooking until lightly browned on second side, about 3 minutes longer. Transfer to bowl with salt pork.
• Add sausages and cook, turning occasionally, until well-browned on both sides. Transfer to bowl with salt pork and chicken. Drain all but 2 tablespoons fat from pot.
• Add onions to pot and cook, stirring and scraping up browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Cook until onions are translucent but not browned, about 4 minutes. Add drained beans, carrot, celery, garlic, parsley, bay leaves, cloves, and stock/gelatin mixture. Bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce to low, cover Dutch oven, and cook until beans are almost tender but retain a slight bite, about 45 minutes.
• Using tongs, remove carrots, celery, parsley, bay leaves, and cloves and discard. Add meats to pot and stir to incorporate, making sure that the chicken pieces end up on top of the beans with the skin facing upwards. Beans should be almost completely submerged. Transfer to oven and cook, uncovered, until a thin crust forms on top, about 2 hours, adding more water by pouring it carefully down the side of the pot, as necessary, to keep beans mostly covered.
• Break crust with a spoon and shake pot gently to redistribute. Return to oven and continue cooking, stopping to break and shake the crust every 30 minutes until you reach the 4 1/2 hour mark. Return to oven and continue cooking undisturbed until the crust is deep brown and thick, about 5 to 6 hours total. Serve immediately.

TRADITIONAL CASSOULET

Steps:

• Preheat the oven: Set an oven rack to the center and preheat the oven to 300°F.
• Bake the cassoulet: Cover the Dutch oven with a lid and set it in the oven. Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes without opening the lid.

CASSOULET

Steps:

• Drain the beans and put into a large heavy casserole, preferably enameled cast iron, with bacon, pork rind, garlic, 1 onion, the carrot, and the bouquet garni. Cover with the 10 cups of water and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat, stirring often, until beans are barely tender, about 1 hour. Drain and return to casserole, discarding onion and bouquet garni.
• Add the remaining onion, the duck legs, demi-glace mixture, and tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes.
• Drain the bean mixture in a colander over a bowl and reserve 5 cups of the cooking liquid. Discard bacon and pork rind. Remove the duck legs and cut each in half at the joint. Season beans with 1 teaspoon salt and a few grindings of pepper.
• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
• Place half the bean mixture in casserole. Add duck legs, duck sausage, and garlic sausage, and cover with remaining beans. Add reserved cooking liquid and drizzle the duck fat over the top. Cover and bake until hot and bubbling, about 2 hours. (Cassoulet may be prepared ahead to this point, then cooled and refrigerated for up to 3 days. If refrigerated, bring to room temperature before proceeding).
• Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees F. Uncover cassoulet and bake until top is browned, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and serve.

A SMALL CASSOULET

Steps:

• "Quick soak" the beans: Put them in a small cooking pot and cover with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, let boil heartily for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 1 hour.
• Close to the end of the hour during which your beans have been soaking, heat the fat in another fairly small, heavy cooking pot, and sauté the onion, carrot, celery,and garlic until the vegetables are limp-about 3 minutes. Splash in the wine, and let it cook down briefly. Now transfer the beans and their cooking water to this pot, and add the parsley, thyme, and bay leaf. Add enough stock to bring the liquid level up to about 1 inch above the beans, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 1 hour or more, with cover askew, until the beans are just tender. Salt them now, and add several grindings of pepper. Fish out the parsley and bay leaf, and spoon a layer of beans into a small casserole, cover with the pork and lamb, another layer of beans, a layer of sausage slices, and a final layer of beans. Pour the bean cooking liquid into the casserole, and add enough stock to come halfway up. Sprinkle the parsleyed breadcrumbs on top, and dot the surface with small amounts of fat. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 1 hour.

WEEKDAY CASSOULET

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Rinse and dry the chicken well and season with salt and pepper. Let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.
• In a large Dutch oven, over medium-low heat, add the bacon and slowly render the fat. Remove the bacon to a plate when crispy, leaving the fat in the pan. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the chicken, skin side down. Brown the chicken on both sides and then remove to a plate. Add the onion, celery, carrots and garlic and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Deglaze the pan with white wine and reduce by half. Stir in the beans, bay leaf and thyme. Nestle the chicken thighs and bacon into the pot. Add the chicken stock, cover and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, remove the lid and top the cassoulet with sliced tomatoes and the Garlic Bread Crumbs. Return to the oven and bake, uncovered, 15 minutes longer. Serve the cassoulet with baguette slices.
• In a small saute pan over low heat, add the oil and the garlic. Stir until the oil is fragrant, about 1 minute. Toss in the bread crumbs and cook until the bread crumbs start to turn golden, about 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and remove from heat.

CHEF JOHN'S CASSOULET

Steps:

• Rinse soaked beans and drain.
• Pour broth into a large pot. Add chopped pancetta, bones from duck confit, and the drained beans. Tie bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme sprigs, and garlic into a small square of cheesecloth to create the bouquet garni; add to the pot. Stir. Bring to a simmer over high heat; skim foamy scum that forms, if desired. Reduce heat to low until beans are almost tender, 30 to 45 minutes.
• Sprinkle pork pieces with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat; brown the pork pieces, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Add sausage to the skillet and cook in the same oil, turning until nicely browned on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes. Cut sausages in half and transfer to bowl with pork pieces.
• Remove fat and skin from duck confit and add them to the same skillet. Cook over medium heat until fat is rendered, about 3 minutes. Transfer all fat and browned pieces from the skillet to a mixing bowl. Add melted butter. Stir in bread crumbs and chopped parsley; stir until mixture looks like damp sand. Mix in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup broth.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Place onions, carrots, and celery in the same skillet used to brown the meats; add pinch of salt. Cook and stir over medium heat until onions are translucent and mixture turns golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in tomato paste; cook and stir until tomato paste starts to caramelize and stick to the bottom of the pan, 3 or 4 minutes. Pour in white wine; cook and stir until most of the wine evaporates, 5 or 6 minutes. Remove from heat.
• Drain beans over a large bowl to retain all the cooking liquid. Remove bones and bouquet garni.
• Place drained beans in large shallow baking dish or cast iron skillet (about 12 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep). Stir in cooked vegetables and about 1 cup broth. Add pork pieces and distribute evenly among the beans. Top with the shredded duck confit. Nestle the sausage halves into the bean mixture.
• Ladle cooking liquid into the baking dish until beans are nearly submerged. Spread bread crumb mixture evenly over the top but don't press into the liquid. Use your fingertips to make gentle indentations on the crumb surface for better browning.
• Bake in preheated oven until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 2 hours. Remove from oven and create a small "well" in the center of the cassoulet crust. Ladle about 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid (or as needed) into the well to rehydrate mixture. Use a fork to gently poke into the cassoulet to ensure the liquid is fairly evenly distributed but try not to disturb the crusty surface.
• Continue baking until cassoulet surface is crispy and caramelized, the meat is fork tender, and the beans are creamy and tender, about 30 to 45 more minutes.
• Serve in large bowls with a spoonful or 2 of hot cooking liquid. Top with chopped fresh parsley.

CASSOULET

Steps:

• Put beans in a large bowl, and cover with cold water, then add baking soda, and allow to soak overnight.
• Place the pork hocks, sliced pork belly, reserved pork skin and, if using, the pig ears into a stockpot, and fill with water to cover them by several inches, then set over high heat to come to a boil. Let the meats and skin blanch for 5 to 6 minutes, then remove from the water and allow to cool. Put the slices of pork belly on a plate, then dice the pork skin and, if using, julienne the pig ears, and add these to the plate. Cover, and place in the refrigerator overnight.
• Now turn to the cooled pork hocks and the duck legs. In a small bowl, combine four-spice powder with ground cardamom, ground coriander, additional nutmeg, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Use this spice mixture to season the duck legs and the cooled pork hocks, then put them on a platter, cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.
• Heat oven to 350. Melt the duck fat or duck fat and lard in a heavy, oven-safe pot deep enough to hold the duck legs, pork hocks and the three heads of garlic, then add the meats and the garlic to it, along with the bay leaves, thyme, rosemary and star anise, then place in the oven to simmer for approximately an hour and a half, or until both the duck and the pork are cooked tender and soft and the heads of garlic have almost collapsed. Remove the meats and the garlic from the fat, and allow to cool slightly. (Strain and reserve the perfumed duck fat for another use - more duck confit, say, or to cook potatoes. It will keep in the refrigerator, covered, for quite some time.)
• Drain soaked beans. Put around 5 quarts of water in a large, heavy-bottomed pot, then add the beans, along with the bouquet garni, and bring it to a boil over high heat. Lower heat to a simmer, and cook until the beans are softening but not cooked through, approximately 30 minutes. Reserve the beans and cooking liquid separately. Discard bouquet garni.
• Meanwhile, return pot to medium heat, and add to it 2 tablespoons of the reserved duck fat. When it shimmers, add the garlic sausages to the pot, and sauté until lightly browned, approximately 5 minutes, then remove and reserve. Add the diced carrots, celery, celery root, turnip and rutabaga to the pot, and sweat them slowly in the fat, stirring often, until they begin to soften, approximately 10 minutes. Add the partly cooked beans to the pot, along with the reserved diced pork skin and the ears if you're using them, then the tomato paste, and stir to combine.
• As the vegetables sweat, remove the bones from the cooled pork hocks, and squeeze the heads of garlic to release the garlic confit within. Add both to the bean pot.
• Add enough of the reserved bean-cooking water to the bean pot to just cover the beans, then nestle the duck legs, the sausages and the slices of pork belly on top of the beans. Put the pot in the oven to simmer for 30 minutes to an hour, or until the beans are cooked through.
• Increase oven heat to 450, and cook until the beans are bubbling and crusted around the edges and the meats are deeply crisp on top (about 10-15 minutes). Let rest 10 minutes or so before serving.

HOW TO MAKE CASSOULET

Steps:

• We may think of it as decadent, but cassoulet is at heart a humble bean and meat stew, rooted in the rural cooking of the Languedoc region. But for urban dwellers without access to the staples of a farm in southwest France - crocks of rendered lard and poultry fat, vats of duck confit, hunks of meat from just-butchered pigs and lambs - preparing one is an epic undertaking that stretches the cook. The reward, though, may well be the pinnacle of French home cooking.Cassoulet does take time to make: there is overnight marinating and soaking, plus a long afternoon of roasting and simmering, and a few days on top of that if you make your own confit. However, it is also a relatively forgiving dish, one that welcomes variation and leaves room for the personality of the cook - perhaps more than any other recipe in the canon. As long as you have white beans slowly stewed with some combination of sausages, pork, lamb, duck or goose, you have a cassoulet.The hardest part about making a cassoulet when you're not in southwest France is shopping for the ingredients. This isn't a dish to make on the fly; you will need to plan ahead, ordering the duck fat and confit and the garlic sausage online or from a good butcher, and finding sources for salt pork and fresh, bone-in pork and lamb stew meat. The beans, though, aren't hard to procure. Great Northern and cannellini beans make fine substitutes for the Tarbais, flageolet and lingot beans used in France.Then give yourself over to the rhythm of roasting, sautéing and long, slow simmering. The final stew, a glorious pot of velvety beans and chunks of tender meat covered by a burnished crust, is well worth the effort.
• Named for the cassole, the earthenware pot in which it is traditionally cooked, cassoulet evolved over the centuries in the countryside of southwest France, changing with the ingredients on hand and the cooks stirring the pot.The earliest versions of the dish were most likely influenced by nearby Spain, which has its own ancient tradition of fava bean and meat stews. As the stew migrated to the Languedoc region, the fava beans were replaced by white beans, which were brought over from the Americas in the 16th century.Although there are as many cassoulets as there are kitchens in the Languedoc, three major towns of the region - Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse - all vigorously lay claim to having created what they consider to be the only true cassoulet. It is a feud that has been going on at least since the middle of the 19th century, and probably even longer.In 1938, the chef Prosper Montagné, a native of Carcassonne and an author of the first version of "Larousse Gastronomique," attempted to resolve the dispute. He approached the subject with religious zeal, calling cassoulet "the god of Occidental cuisine" and likening the three competing versions to the Holy Trinity. The cassoulet from Castelnaudary, which is considered the oldest, is the Father in Montagné's trinity, and is made from a combination of beans, duck confit and pork (sausages, skin, knuckles, salt pork and roasted meat). The Carcassonne style is the Son, with mutton and the occasional partridge stirred in. And the version from Toulouse, the Holy Spirit, was the first to add goose confit to the pot.The recipe for cassoulet was codified by the "États Généraux de la Gastronomie" in 1966, and it was done in a way that allowed all three towns to keep their claims of authenticity. The organization mandated that to be called cassoulet, a stew must consist of at least 30 percent pork, mutton or preserved duck or goose (or a combination of the three elements), and 70 percent white beans and stock, fresh pork rinds, herbs and flavorings.That settled the question of which meats to use. But there are two other main points of contention that still inspire debate: the use of tomatoes and other vegetables with the beans, and a topping of bread crumbs that crisp in the oven. Julia Child chose to do both, as we do here. "The Escoffier Cookbook" and "Larousse Gastronomique" give some recipes that include the tomatoes, vegetables and bread crumbs, and some that omit them. The beauty of it is that if you make your own cassoulet, you get to decide.Above, "The Kitchen Table" by Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779).
• Casserole dish You will need a deep casserole dish that holds at least eight quarts, or a large Dutch oven, to bake the cassoulet. If you use a Dutch oven, you won't need the cover. The cassoulet needs to bake uncovered to develop a crisp crust.Baking sheets All of the ingredients for a cassoulet are cooked before being combined and baked again. The meat can be cooked in any number of ways; here, the pork and lamb stew meat is roasted on rimmed baking sheets so that it browns.Large pot The beans and garlic sausage (or kielbasa) are cooked in a large pot before they are added to the casserole, though you could use a slow cooker or pressure cooker, if you have one. You will also need a second small pot for simmering the salt pork.Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has guides to the best Dutch ovens and baking sheets.
• This slow-cooked casserole requires a good deal of culinary stamina. But the voluptuous combination of aromatic beans with rich chunks of duck confit, sausage, pork and lamb is worth the effort. Serve it with a green salad. It doesn't need any other accompaniment, and you wouldn't have room for one anyway.
• The hardest part of making a cassoulet may be obtaining the ingredients. Beyond that, it helps to think of cooking and building it in stages. Once you've gathered and prepared the components (the meat, beans, salt pork, sausage, duck confit and bread crumb topping), assembling the dish is just a matter of layering the elements.• You can use any kind of roasted meats for a cassoulet, and the kinds vary by region. Substitute roasted chicken, turkey or goose for the duck confit, bone-in beef for the lamb and bone-in veal for the pork. Lamb neck is a great substitute for the bone-in lamb stew meat, and you can use any chunks of bone-in pork, like pork ribs, in place of the pork stew meat. (The bones give the dish more flavor, and their gelatin helps thicken the final stew.)• Do not use smoked sausages in the beans, or substitute smoked bacon for the salt pork. The smoky flavor can overwhelm the dish, and it is not traditional in French cassoulets. If you can't find salt pork, pancetta will work in its place, and you won't need to poach it beforehand.• You can buy duck confit at gourmet markets or order it online. If you'd prefer to make it yourself, this is how to do it: Rub 4 fresh duck legs with a large pinch of salt each. Place in a dish and generously sprinkle with whole peppercorns, thyme sprigs and smashed, peeled garlic cloves. Cover and let cure for 4 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. When ready to cook, wipe the meat dry with paper towels, discarding the garlic, pepper and herbs. Place in a Dutch oven or baking dish and cover completely with fat. (Duck fat is traditional, but olive oil also works.) Bake in a 200-degree oven until the duck is tender and well browned, 3 to 4 hours. Let duck cool in the fat before refrigerating. Duck confit lasts for at least a month in the refrigerator and tastes best after sitting for 1 week.• Don't think the meat is the only star of this dish. The beans need just as much love. You want them velvety, sitting in a trove of tomato, stock and rich fat. Buy the best beans you can, preferably ones that have been harvested and dried within a year of cooking. The variety of white bean is less important than their freshness.• Bread crumbs aren't traditional for cassoulet, but will result in a topping with an especially airy and crisp texture. Regular dried bread crumbs, either bought or homemade, will also work.• When you roast the meat, leave plenty of space between the chunks of meat so they brown nicely. More browning means richer flavor. You can also use leftover roasted meat if you have them on hand.• The bouquet garni flavors both the beans and the bean liquid, which is used to moisten the cassoulet as it bakes. To make one, take sprigs of parsley and thyme and a bay leaf and tie them together with at least 1 foot of kitchen string. Tuck the bay leaf in the middle of the bouquet and make sure you wrap the herbs up thoroughly, several times around, so they don't escape into the pot.• Feel free to use a slow cooker or pressure cooker for the beans. Add the garlic sausage (or kielbasa) about halfway through the cooking time. It doesn't have to be exact, since the sausage is already cooked; you're adding it to flavor the beans and their liquid.• Use a very large skillet, at least 12 inches, for sautéing the sausages and finishing the beans before you layer them into the casserole dish. • In this recipe, the beans are finished in a tomato purée, which reduces and thickens the sauce of the final cassoulet. But you can substitute a good homemade stock for the purée. You'll get a soupier cassoulet, but it's just as traditional without the tomatoes.• The salt pork is layered in strips into the bottom of the baking dish. Then, while cooking, it crisps and turns into a bottom crust for the stew. So it is important to slice it thinly and carefully place it in a single layer on the bottom of the dish (and up the sides, if you have enough). Don't overlap it very much, or those parts won't get as crisp.• The reserved bean liquid is added to the cassoulet for cooking, and its starchiness is what keeps the stew thick and creamy. Using stock instead would make for a soupier but still delicious cassoulet.• You create a substantial top crust with crunch by repeatedly cracking the very thick layer of bread crumbs as the cassoulet cooks, and by drizzling the topping with bean liquid, which browns and crisps up in the heat. It's best to crack the topping in even little taps from the side of a large spoon. You are looking to create more texture and crunch by exposing more of the bread crumbs to the hot oven and bean liquid, which should be drizzled generously and evenly.• If you like you can skip the bread crumbs entirely, which is just as traditional. The top will brown on its own, but there won't be a texturally distinct crust.• You do not have to make the cassoulet all in one go. You can break up the work, cooking the separate elements ahead of time and reserving them until you are ready to layer and bake the cassoulet. Or assemble the cassoulet in its entirety ahead of time, without bread crumbs, and then top and bake just before serving.
• Photography Food styling: Alison Attenborough. Prop styling: Beverley Hyde. Additional photography: Karsten Moran for The New York Times. Additional styling: Jade Zimmerman. Video Food styling: Chris Barsch and Jade Zimmerman. Art direction: Alex Brannian. Prop styling: Catherine Pearson. Director of photography: James Herron. Camera operators: Tim Wu and Zack Sainz. Editing: Will Lloyd and Adam Saewitz. Additional editing: Meg Felling.
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