12.03.06
Cassoulet, Day 2, Part 1
Assembling a cassoulet is embarrassingly simple.
You need a great huge pot or pan with a lid, and all of it, including the lid, has to be able to go in the oven. This is the one I have, it’s fabulous and worth every (considerable) penny, but I have made happy cassoulets in everything from Corelleware to cast iron Dutch ovens to a big Chinese clay pot. So it doesn’t much matter what you’re gonna cook it in. There ain’t no such thing as a “cassoulet pot.” (Of course I believe that there isn’t any such thing as a paella pan or a tarte tatin pan or a pommes Anna pan either, because I make them all in varying sizes of cast iron pans. My kitchen is small and I just don’t have room or patience for 9000 fussy singlepurpose pans. Who does? I don’t know these people.)
Drain your beans. You remember the beans. You put them in to soak last night. Those. Drain them. Put them into the baking dish.
Next, put your faux-confit duck parts in, nestled down into the beans. Ditto with your pork bits. Chop your sausage(s) into portion-sized chunks and put those in. Peel and halve a couple of small onions and put them in, and maybe a few small turnips if you have them, or a couple-four carrots. Definitely throw in a handful of peeled whole garlic cloves. Tuck in a bay leaf, and if you have some fresh thyme, tie a few sprigs together with kitchen twine and pop that in too. It is a nice touch to take one of those halved onions and stick a few whole cloves in it before you throw it in, but it’s not necessary.
Pour in about a quart and a half of poultry stock if you have it or water if you don’t (it certainly isn’t going to suffer for flavor regardless of which you use). The beans should be covered to the depth of about an inch of liquid.
Cover the pan and put it in a moderate (350 degrees F) oven. Leave it in there at 350 F for an hour and a half, then reduce the heat to 250 degrees F. Leave it for another hour or two, then remove the lid. Move the meat bits around so that the parts that have been out of the liquid get a chance to be in the liquid, etc.
Return to the oven, uncovered, to let some of the liquid cook off. As it cooks it’ll form a delicious crust on top. Great battles have erupted between the kinds of people who have great battles about these things over the issue of how often this crust should be broken and pushed down into the bubbling beany goodness below. Frankly I fail to detect any significant difference no matter how often or how rarely I do it, so I don’t worry about it one bit. But I do, a few times over the course of the day that a cassoulet spends in my oven, give it a stir/redistribution of goodies.
Let it cook until it’s done. It’s done when you want to eat it, as long as when you want to eat it coincides with at least 4-5 hours of oven time after you turned the heat down. If it gets too dry, add more stock or water. It shouldn’t be too soupy, unless you like that.
Eat. With a green salad (you need some greens with this, and some vinegar, to balance the richness out). Some crusty bread is nice to sop up the juice with. Beer, or cider, or a red wine you like that isn’t too sweet, or just cold good water.
If you must have dessert, fruit is the way to go, and maybe a small quantity of very dark bitter chocolate.