12.02.06
Cassoulet, Day 1
Cassoulet can, of course, be made in ways that do not turn it into a multi-day process. But if you have the time, it seems it is always best when you do it over at least two days. Or so think I.
I have no time or patience for picky-eater French foodie wars over what exactly ought or ought not go into a cassoulet. Like most dishes I cook, it’s peasant food. What goes into cassoulet? Whatever you have that seems like it will work. Why? Because peasants don’t have huge wodges of spare cash sitting around so they can go to some gourmet grocery store and buy exactly the correct sort of saucisson or tinned duck confit. Anyone who says you have to do that is full of it, and won’t be getting any of my cassoulet, that’s for damn sure.
So what is a cassoulet? It’s a long-cooking savory casserole based on some sort of white beans and various sorts of meat, usually duck, pork, and lamb, but sometimes other things. My favorite cassoulets have duck, garlicky sausage of some sort, and some kind of smoked meat, either smoked turkey or pork usually. The one I am making right now will have faux-confit of duck, garlic turkey kielbasa, and smoked pork shank.
The thing this doesn’t tell you is that cassoulets are alchemical and magically wonderful. Somehow, in long slow cooking, all the various things you’ve put in the dish turn into something that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. It is worth making a cassoulet at least once, just to know that you, all by yourself, can turn some fairly humble ingredients into something that utterly delicious.
So here’s how you do it.
Soak a pound of dry white beans of your choice. I’m using cannellini because they’re what I’ve got in the house. These’ll soak overnight, so just get them soaking and set them aside and forget about them.
Faux Confit:
This is not a real confit because a real confit requires long salting/brining followed by a whole bunch of other mishegoss. Confits of poultry are a method of preserving the poultry. You can look it up if you’re curious. Since you do not need to preserve the poultry you can simply make a fake confit, which will taste amazing and add its wonderfulness to your cassoulet the next day.
Take a medium-sized clean duck and joint it (remove wings and legs). Set the legs aside. Trim the end joint off of the wings and put wingtips in your stockpot with some water, a couple of onions, a few ribs of celery, a couple of carrots, a bayleaf or two, and put it on a very low simmer. You can toss the neck in there too. Set the rest of the wings aside. Cover the legs and wings and refrigerate them for now.
Skin the remainder of the duck carcass, being careful to remove all of the fatty layer beneath the skin. Be sure to get the extra skin at the neck, but avoid the glands, ditto the fatty deposits near the tail. Dice the skin and fat and place in a large heavy deep frying pan (I use my 18-inch cast iron skillet for this) and place over medium heat to render the fat. Dice an onion, too, and toss that in to the rendering fat, along with a healthy handful of peeled whole garlic cloves. Render until the skin has given up all its fat and all the garlic cloves and onion bits are a beautiful even dark brown (but not burned!). Remove the skin bits and onions and garlic with a slotted spoon and drain them on a thick layer of paper toweling. (Incidentally, the skin bits are crunchy and delicious with some coarse salt, if you are so inclined, and you really should try them at least once. Some people find them addictive. The ghost of my gall bladder weeps bitter tears if I eat more than about 2 of the delectable crispy little things, but it’s great while it lasts.)
While the duck fat is rendering, remove the breast meat and tenderloins from the duck carcass. It is possible to remove breast and tenderloin in one piece, but I rarely bother — I cook up the tenderloins as a snack, saving the breasts for the faux-confit. Place the breasts (and tenderloins, if not immediately cooking them) in with the legs and wings and salt generously with some kosher salt, then wrap up and put back in the fridge to keep them from getting to salmonella-friendly temperatures.
As for the carcass, which you have now successfully denuded of skin and useful chunks of meat, toss it in the stock pot. Do not let the stock boil — nothing higher than a low simmer — or it will become cloudy.
Once you have strained the solids out of the rendered duck fat, heat it over a low medium flame, then add the duck meat. Legs go in the center of the pan, wings and breasts around the outsides. Reduce the flame to low, just enough to make the fat simmer lightly, and cook the meat slowly in the fat, turning after 15 minutes, then waiting 15 more. Then braise the meat in the hot fat further for about 30 minutes on a side. It should develop a delightful crust.
Remove the meat from the fat when it is done and allow to cool somewhat, then refrigerate. You may, if you wish, strain the fat and refrigerate it so you can use it later to fry potatoes in (they sound more highfalutin’ if you call them pommes sarlandaises but by any other name, good stout russet potatoes sliced into pinkie-thick discs and fried until nutty brown in duck fat, then salted and served alongside a roast meat and a green salad are a fabulous thing).
As for the stock, let it simmer for an hour or two, then strain out the solids. Let it cool, then pour into suitable containers and refrigerate or freeze (depending on whether or not you plan to use it for the cassoulet — I find that cassoulet made with duck stock is too rich for me, I prefer it made with a thoroughly defatted chicken stock).
So. That’s Day 1.
And yes, I presume you already know how to butcher and skin poultry. If you don’t know, I believe The Joy of Cooking still has instructions. It’s not hard. And since you’re going to dice the skin up anyway it doesn’t matter much if you do a hatchet job. Use sharp knives, they’re safer than dull ones. Be brave. It’s worth it.
More tomorrow.