This year I’m going to be doing a traditional Gascogne dish, Cassoulet, for Christmas dinner. Or maybe Christmas Eve dinner. I’ve made a one day version of the dish before, but this time I’m going as full out as possible with a multiple day preparation. It’s actually an extremely easy and comforting dish if you have the patience. Why not do something extra special this year and leave the turkey back at Thanksgiving? This particular recipe is a little Julia Child, a touch of Anthony Bourdain, and the tiniest bit me.
As for the harder to come by ingredients you can get the duck legs (or even already confit duck legs), Tarbais beans, and duck fat from D’Artagnan. They even have a duck and veal demi if you just can’t make your own before Christmas comes.
With its hoity toity French name you may think cassoulet is something difficult or even impossible to make. Just remember that all you’re making is beans infused with pork along with your choice of meats. It’s a poor man’s dish, and something the French would serve at home every day if they could. You might be tempted to make this a weekly staple after trying it just once.
Skip down to below the full recipe for tips on how to use a few tweaks and tricks to turn this multiple day project into a one day, one pot dish. Allowing the cassoulet to sit in the refrigerator overnight will result in a better product, but even just cooking it all in one day will be delicious.
Duck Confit Ingredients
4 Duck Legs
Sea salt
2 cups duck fat
Pepper
4 sprigs thym
1 sprig rosemary
1 garlic clove
Rub the duck legs generously with the sea salt, place in a shallow dish and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight. Allow absolutely nothing to get into this dish except the called for ingredients.
Preheat oven to 375. Render your duck fat in a saucepan until clear, season with a pinch of pepper. Place the duck legs in the rendered fat along with the garlic, rosemary, and thyme. Make sure the legs are covered by the fat, cover dish with foil and cook for about an hour. Or until the meat is very tender. Let the duck legs cool in the fat. You can keep this stored, with the legs sealed in fat, for a very long time as long as no contaminants made it into the dish.
Cassoulet Ingredients
5 cups Tarbais beans, or white beans if you can’t find the traditional bean
2 pounds pork belly
4 onions, 1 quartered and the rest sliced
1 carrot, large dice
1 celery stalk, large dice
2 Tbsp tomato paste
¼ lb chopped tomatoes
1 bouquet garni (parsley, thyme, garlic clove, etc)
Salt and pepper
¼ c duck fat
6 pork sausages
1 clove garlic, chopped
4 confit duck legs
1 cup veal demi-glace
2 cups fresh bread crumbs
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
Soak the beans, covered with water by 3 inches, overnight.
Drain and rinse the beans and put in a large pot. Add the quartered onion, carrot, onion, the pork belly, and the bouquet garni. Cover with water, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until beans are tender, about 1 hour. Let cool until you can handle, then discard the veggies and bouquet garni. Cut the pork belly into a large dice. Strain the beans, reserving the cooking liquid.
In a medium saucepan combine the reserved bean cooking liquid and veal demi-glace over medium high heat and reduce by about ¼.
Heat almost all of the duck fat, reserving just a little, in a sauté pan until hot and shimmery. Brown the sausages on all sides. Remove and drain on paper towels. You can either leave all or some whole, or you can slice the sausage on the bias. In the same pan over low heat add the onion, tomato paste and garlic. Cook slowly for about an hour, or until the onions are a soft and reduced down. Add in ¼ lb of the pork belly for the last 20 minutes or so of cooking. Place the onion and pork mixture in a blender with the last bit of duck fat and puree until smooth. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 350. Using a deep ovenproof dish start layering ingredients: pork belly, beans, chopped tomato, sausage, beans, pork belly, duck confit, beans, and on. Place a bit of the onion and pork puree in between each layer. Add enough of the bean and veal demi liquid to just cover the beans, being sure to keep about a cup for later use. Cook cassoulet for one hour, reduce heat to 250 and cook an additional hour. Let cool and refrigerate overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 and cook cassoulet for one hour. Break the crust on top and pour in a bit of the reserved liquid. Combine the bread crumbs and chopped parsley. Sprinkle one cup of the bread crumbs over top and drizzle with a few tablespoons of clarified butter. Cook for 10 minutes like this, then remove cassoulet from the oven and carefully press the bread crumbs down into the liquid. Sprinkle with the rest of the bread crumbs and drizzle with more clarified butter. Cook an additional 15 minutes, or until very hot and a golden brown crust forms. Serve immediately.
Tips and tricks for an easy cassoulet
You can do a fast soak on the beans by placing them in a pot with water, bring to a boil for 2 minutes, turn off heat and cover tightly. Allow to sit for one hour. Then rinse and drain just as you would with overnight soaked beans. Because the beans are such an integral part of the dish, and how long the whole thing cooks, you really shouldn’t use canned beans. But this will take away a bit of the pain of using dried beans.
You don’t have to confit the duck legs. Just cook them in a sauté pan until just barely done, and then use the rendered fat you get for the rest of the dish. Alternatively you can buy already confitted (does that word exist?) duck legs.
Skip the refrigeration portion of the dish and just layer up everything and cook in the oven. Just be sure the cassoulet is hot, a nice crust has formed for you to break through, and you add in that reserved bean cooking liquid at the end.
