Cassoulet For Today Recipes

Steps:

• For the cassoulet: Combine the dried beans, 1 tablespoon salt and 8 cups hot water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and cover with a lid. Let sit for 1 hour, until the beans are "al dente" (softened but still with some bite). Drain the beans and rinse under cold water.
• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
• In a large Dutch oven over medium-low heat, add 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the bacon lardons. Slowly render the fat out of the bacon and cook until crispy, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Drain the bacon on a paper towel-lined baking sheet.
• Increase the heat to medium and add the sausages to the rendered bacon fat. Brown on both sides, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Drain on the baking sheet.
• Season the chicken thighs and drumsticks generously on both sides with salt and pepper. In two batches, add the chicken to the Dutch oven and cook until deep golden brown, about 5 minutes per side. Drain on the baking sheet.
• Stir the onions, carrots, fennel and celery into the rendered fat; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until softened, 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste; cook for another 2 minutes, until evenly combined with the vegetables and just beginning to toast. Add the diced tomatoes, chicken stock, white beans, parsley, rosemary and thyme. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer.
• Cut the sausages on the bias into thin rounds and add them to the pot along with the bacon, stirring to combine. Transfer the cassoulet to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Top with the chicken thighs and drumsticks; drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil over the chicken.
• Place the baking dish on a baking sheet and transfer to the oven. Bake until the top of the cassoulet turns a rich, deep brown color, the liquid has reduced and the beans have risen to the surface, about 1 hour 30 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes.
• For the breadcrumb topping: Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. When the butter has melted, add the breadcrumbs and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Toast the breadcrumbs until golden brown, stirring often, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest and parsley.
• To serve: Garnish the cassoulet with the breadcrumb topping and some fennel fronds. Serve immediately!

Steps:

• Soak Great Northern beans in water in a large bowl overnight. Drain beans and place into a large soup pot. Push whole clove into the 1/2 onion and add to beans; stir in garlic, bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, and 10 cups water. Bring beans to a simmer and cook over medium-low heat until beans have started to soften, about 1 hour. Drain beans and reserve the cooking liquid, removing and discarding onion with clove and bay leaf. Transfer beans to a large mixing bowl.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Cook bacon in a large, heavy Dutch oven over medium heat until lightly browned and still limp, about 5 minutes. Stir celery, carrots, and 1/2 diced onion into bacon; season with salt. Cook and stir vegetables in the hot bacon fat until tender, about 10 minutes.
• Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat; brown sausage link halves and duck confit in the hot oil until browned, about 5 minutes per side.
• Season vegetable-bacon mixture with 1 1/2 teaspoon salt, cracked black pepper, and herbes de Provence; pour in diced tomatoes. Cook and stir mixture over medium heat until juice from tomatoes has nearly evaporated and any browned bits of food on the bottom of pot have dissolved, about 5 minutes. Stir mixture into beans.
• Spread half the bean mixture into the heavy Dutch oven and place duck-sausage mixture over the beans; spread remaining beans over meat layer. Pour just enough of the reserved bean liquid into pot to reach barely to the top of the beans, reserving remaining liquid. Bring bean cassoulet to a simmer on stovetop and cover Dutch oven with lid.
• Bake bean cassoulet in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
• Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add 4 crushed garlic cloves, panko crumbs, and parsley to the melted butter. Season with salt and black pepper, and drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil over crumbs. Stir to thoroughly combine.
• Uncover cassoulet and check liquid level; mixture should still have several inches of liquid. If beans seem dry, add more of the reserved bean liquid. Spread half the crumb mixture evenly over the beans and return to oven. Cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes. There should be about 2 or 3 inches of liquid at the bottom of the pot; if mixture seems dry, add more reserved bean mixture. Sprinkle remaining half the bread crumb mixture over cassoulet.
• Turn oven heat to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and bake cassoulet, uncovered, until crumb topping is crisp, edges are bubbling, and the bubbles are slow and sticky, 20 to 25 more minutes. Serve beans on individual plates and top each serving with a piece of duck and several sausage pieces.

Steps:

• Rinse and sort beans; soak according to package directions. Drain and rinse beans, discarding liquid., In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown sausage links; transfer to a 5-qt. slow cooker. Add bacon to skillet; cook until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon to slow cooker., In bacon drippings, cook pork and lamb until browned on all sides. Place in slow cooker. Stir in beans and remaining ingredients., Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until beans are tender. Discard cloves and bay leaves. Remove sausage and cut into 1/4-in. slices; return to slow cooker and stir gently.

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.

Steps:

• To cut the meats, roll up the pork rind like a Swiss roll. With the seam underneath, use a very sharp knife to cut the roll across into thin slices, then chop the rolled-up slices across into dice. Chop the bacon into small cubes (lardons). Cut the garlic sausage into 1cm thick slices.
• Drain the soaked beans and discard the soaking water. Tip the beans into a large saucepan, add the diced pork rind and lardons and cover with fresh cold water. Bring to the boil and blanch for 15-20 minutes. Drain the beans, rind and lardons into a colander, and discard the cooking water.
• Roughly chop the celery, onion and carrot. Peel the garlic cloves but leave them whole. Cut each tomato into eight wedges. (You never see tomatoes in a traditional cassoulet, but chef Raymond Blanc likes them for their colour and sweetness, so he puts a couple in.) Preheat the oven to 120C/fan 100C. (If cooking in a gas oven, use mark 2.)
• Heat the goose fat or olive oil in a 26cm flameproof casserole or deep overproof sauté pan over a low heat and sweat the celery, onion, carrot and garlic for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and bouquet garni and cook slowly to get a sugary caramelisation (about 5 minutes). Add the sausage, beans, pork rind and lardons and pour in 1.2 litres/2 pints water. Bring to the boil, skim off the scum, then add the salt, pepper, clove and lemon juice.
• Transfer the casserole to the oven and cook, uncovered, for 2 hours, stirring every hour. At the end of this time, the beans will be soft and creamy in texture and the juices should have thickened. You may need to cook it for longer than 2 hours (say up to 2½ hours) to get to this stage - it depends
• Remove the cassoulet from the oven. Bury the duck legs in the beans and sprinkle over the goose fat or olive oil, breadcrumbs and garlic. Return to the oven and cook for a further 2 hours. Serve the cassoulet in bowls, sprinkled with chopped parsley.

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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