Cassoulet history

Found this entry in a blog, which provides some interesting background to cassoulet. It also contains a recipe which I might well try out at some point in the future...
Cassoulet

Does anyone want recipes?

I should probably provide recipes for cassoulets on this blog. Might do seperate metric/Imperial/US versions, or try and combine (although this gets rather messy sometimes imho). Any thoughts anyone?

Trying out "Feed shark" to see if I can increase traffic...
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Christmas dinner leftover cassoulet

Everyone goes on at this time of year about making Christmas dinner preparations easier, or using up the leftovers in the days following the big day itself.

Not to be left out, I've tinkered with the standard recipe for cassoulet so it can use pre-cooked meats by reducing the cooking time. To allow for this, I've replaced the haricot beans with black-eyed beans which have a much quicker cooking time. I've also replaced the bouquet garni with chopped parsley and celery, since there won't be as much time for the flavours to infuse into the stock.

So, here's the video of this experiment...

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The main changes I would suggest would be to use a little less parsley and a bit more ham or gammon. It would probably also benefit from a little longer in the oven at a slightly lower temperature (say an extra 15 minutes and 10 degrees cooler).

It has already been suggested that it could have a dash of white wine added... I suspect this might be a worthwhile addition.

All comments gratefully received.

Christmas sort of comes early

I had a good idea the other day. Well, I thought it was good.

One of my cassoulet experiments for this blog should be one which uses up Christmas dinner leftovers. Cooked turkey, sausage, ham... That sort of thing.

The obvious problem with this is that posting it on the blog after Christmas is a bit of a waste of time: who's going to read something that might have been useful a week earlier?

In order to have a chance of posting in a timely fashion, I need to have Christmas dinner leftovers available sooner. So today I bought a small gammon joint, turkey and some sausagemeat. Yep. What more can I say? Three weeks before Christmas. Yep.

Dirty duck fat

It's worth pointing out that fat from the bottom of a roasting tin might be a little wet and/or mucky-looking.

If this is the case, it can be made "cleaner" (and, I suspect, given a better storage life) by simply heating up in a pan and then pouring into a clean jar or bowl... Narrow & tall if possible. When reset in the fridge, impurities should rest at the bottom and form a thin film on top. Both of these layers can then be easily removed.

By the way, I keep my duck fat in screw-top jars in the fridge.

Duck fat and stock

Not for the faint hearted!

Yesterday, we had roast duck. The fat that drains off can be used to make confit of duck at a later stage, and the stock can be used in a cassoulet. The confit, as you probably guessed, can be used in a cassoulet.

I've drained the fat out of the roasting tin into a bowl: placed in the fridge, it will then set.

The carcass of the duck has been placed in a large saucepan and covered with water, brought to the boil, and then simmered for a few hours. Exact temperature is not important, nor is cooking time (the longer it's cooked, the stronger it will be). Generally, it's "done" when the carcass has really fallen apart.

The stock will be allowed to cool and then strained, the solids thrown away and the stock put in the fridge overnight. Really strong stocks will set as a jelly in the fridge. I sometimes boil the stock between straining and refrigerating to reduce its volume (which is then more likely to set). Once chilled, stock can be put in tupperware containers and frozen.

The layer of fat that gathers at the top of the stock can be skimmed off quite easily if you let it set, and added to the bowl of fat gathered earlier.

I find, generally, that fat from two ducks is more than adequate for making confit of two duck legs.

If push comes to shove, supermarkets do generally sell duck or goose fat now - especially in the run-up to Christmas.

I plan to post to this blog at a later date when I make the confit. Watch this space.

Guinea fowl, bacon and sausage cassoulet.

Here it is, then, the first experiment (serves 2-3):



The result was quite good. Haricot beans ended up nice and soft and creamy (not sure if this was just because they were a fresh bag, or whether something more subtle was going on).

If anything was wrong, the balance was too much towards the meat side of things. It could probably have done with just the legs and wings of the bird, with the crown set aside for something else.

I must, from now on, make two small bouquet garni, instead of one large one. It wouldn't go fully down into the stock.

Compared to the "normal" cassoulet recipe, this one has a lighter flavour than one with Confit of Duck and Toulouse sausages in (which can be a bit on the rich side).

All (clean) comments welcomed.