Cassoulet, again

[Jenise]

In preparation for tomorrow's cassoulet fest. I am getting my ducks in a row, literally (hahahaha), by reading all manner of stuff to re-invigorate my determination, including Betty Lu Kessler's recipe and a consultation with Larousse Gastronomique. I own two copies if that venerable tome, but for stuff like this it's the 1988 version that I want to read. The language is delightfully mannered and stuffy, and too it was written in a time where only the gourmand need be pleased and shortcuts were unthinkable.

Some passages I adored:

Anatole France loved the cassoulet. He especially prized the one made by a certain Madame Clemence, rue Vavin. "I am going to lead you to a little tavern in the rue Vavin, chez Clemence, who only makes one dish but a stupendous one: le cassoulet de Castelbaudary. Le Cassoulet contains legs of confit d'oie (*preserved goose), haricot beans previously blanched, pork fat and little sasusages. To be good it must have cooked very slowly for a long time. Clemence's cassoulet has been cooking for twenty years. She replenishes the pot sometimes with goose, sometimes with pork fat, sometimes she puts in a sausage or some haricots, but it is always the same cassoulet. The basis remains and this ancient and precious substance gives it a taste which one finds in the paintings of the old Venetian masters, in the amber flesh tints of their women. Come, I wish you to taste Clemence's cassoulet."

And:

There are three kinds of cassoulets, that of Castelnaudary, that of Carcassonne, and that of Toulouse.

Certain gastronomes deny this and maintain that there is only one cassoulet, that of Castelnaudary. Serious culinary writers however recognize this trinity....

The three types of cassoulet should have the following differences: Castelnaudary (the forebear) is prepared with fresh pork, ham, knuckle of pork and fresh bacon rinds; that of Carcassonne with the addition to the above of a shortened leg of mutton and partridges in season; that of Toulouse, always in addition to the ingredients already mentioned for the cassoulet de Castelnaudary: breast of pork, Toulouse sausage, mutton and confit d'oie...or confit de canard.

So much for principles. In current practice, in the Parisian restaurant just as much as those in Languedoc, the rules relating to the different constituents are not always observed and more or less universally the cassoulet, which is after all nothing but a succulent estouffade of pork and mutton with haricot beans, is prepared with preserved goose or duck.

All this served to remind me that the Cassoulet I'm making is in the style of Toulouse. My meat base is the all-duck kit from D'Artagnan, but I'm planning to use only two pounds of the beans and I just might add some pork ribs for an added dash of variety and authenticity. This might also distract the kids who will be present, thereby leaving the duck confit for the adults.

Voila! great minds come to the same place instinctively. We are having the third and last cassoulet dinner also for this season tomorrow night. I usually don't review dinners where my wife is the cook for obvious reasons but I'll do my best to come up with some kind of summary of the evening's event.

[Jenise]

Tres bien, Lou!

Betty Lu's famous version, we should mention, is in the Toulouse style.

I'm fussing right now over vessels: it only dawned on me today that I've only made smaller cassoulets, a quantity for about six persons even if it was only Bob and I at the table. For tomorrow I'm feeding 12. Considering that for Betty Lu this is a multi-date annual event, you guys must have some large, dedicated pottery for same. Or two. Probably made out of the real deal Languedocian Issel clay!

I'm also a big fan of the Toulouse school of cassoulet, mostly because I prize the duck or goose confit above all else save the beans. For pork I use a good saucisse de Toulouse, some Lardons and cubed pork loin.

Mark Lipton
(posting from where it just turned to Fall)

Here I am with just a few minutes before my next jump into a task, but I have to mention that my son in law Davy cooked a splendid cassoulet for the family on our annual ski vacation a week ago.
He followed Anthony Bourdain's recipe from the Les Halles cookbook, soaking the beans one day, then cooking them with herbs and a pork belly while he confited the duck legs in a basin of duck fat flavored with garlic and more herbs. The beans rested overnight with the pork, soaking up the fat. The final day, he assembled the cassoulet with a layer of bacon on the bottom, some beans, the confited duck legs, more beans, then some garlicky andouille sausages and chunks of the pork belly, then a final layer of beans. To this he added some stock and some reserved liquid from cooking the beans. Baked it for about 2 more hours, then served. It was the best cassoulet I've ever had, including those I've sampled in France. Extremely rich, of course. The quantity he cooked would have served 20 people generously and since there were just 7 of us, we all got a nice portion of cassoulet to take home and enjoy later. I'm going to France next week so will have Davy's cassoulet in my mind as a benchmark to be surpassed....

Madame Clemence's cassoulet has been simmering away for 20 years. That's impressive! My wife's confit was made early last fall and has been melding away in the refrigerator since then. But 20 years.

A friend wrote me a postcard from Castelnaudary one time:

recipe.cassoulet_postcard_sm.jpg

I've done the d'Artagnan cassoulet and would say a definite yes to the pork rib addition as well as additional garlic and tweaking the seasoning to taste....I found it monochromatic. Would make my own sausages next time.
I also had difficulty with the cooking vessels...ended up using 2 enamel cast iron dutch ovens for the entire batch

[Jenise]

The cassoulet was delicious. But I have to say I didn't like it as well with the tarbais bean as I've liked it in the past with flageolets I believe it was. The beans didn't give off enough starch, so adding liquid made it brothier but not thicker. I like a soupier cassoulet, and I would like to have gone through all seven of the cap-punches dictated by tradition but after three I turned the oven down to warm until service, because my beans would have just cooked to mush--and we didn't overcook them to start. I did anticipate that the recipe didn't call for enough liquid and had tasty homemade chicken broth ready to go, but still, without the starch to support it (I used two pounds of beans, not all three in the kit) I risked just making it brothy.

I really liked the addition of the ribs. I used one full rack of baby backs which I had the butcher cut in half lengthwise for me. I then cut each into two-bone segments, so each piece was about 2"x 2" which looked good in the dish, held together well in cooking (they were seared off first) and made them easy to eat with a knife and fork. In addition to the ribs, I divided a pound of bacon between the two vessels for lining the bottom.

[Jenise]

Here I am with just a few minutes before my next jump into a task, but I have to mention that my son in law Davy cooked a splendid cassoulet for the family on our annual ski vacation a week ago.
He followed Anthony Bourdain's recipe from the Les Halles cookbook, soaking the beans one day, then cooking them with herbs and a pork belly while he confited the duck legs in a basin of duck fat flavored with garlic and more herbs. The beans rested overnight with the pork, soaking up the fat. The final day, he assembled the cassoulet with a layer of bacon on the bottom, some beans, the confited duck legs, more beans, then some garlicky andouille sausages and chunks of the pork belly, then a final layer of beans. To this he added some stock and some reserved liquid from cooking the beans. Baked it for about 2 more hours, then served. It was the best cassoulet I've ever had, including those I've sampled in France. Extremely rich, of course. The quantity he cooked would have served 20 people generously and since there were just 7 of us, we all got a nice portion of cassoulet to take home and enjoy later. I'm going to France next week so will have Davy's cassoulet in my mind as a benchmark to be surpassed....

Ines, I'm sorry, I missed your post over the weekend. What you describe is pretty close to the D'Artagnan recipe with the mods I made, like adding the bacon liner. Anthony might have used more herbs. For my tastes, the garlicky andouille sausage would be a big improvement over the sausages I bought from d'Artagnan, too. Sounds great. I need to try again with different beans.

Have a great time in France--tell Bob and Linda hello for me.