Cassoulet- bean, bean, duck

This is what the days look like through my i-phone- subtly altered states of deliciousness as we tackle the cassoulet kind of season.

It begins with a bean.

Not just any bean, but a fresh from the pod, first pick of the season, plump pillow of a bean we call Coco, Coco de Paimpol.  (for more info about this sweet bean from Brittany- http://www.cookipedia.co.uk/wiki/index.php/White_bean) . These beans are sold in large netted bags by the 20 kilograms and they are one of my favorites for making Cassoulet. Since they are not completely dried when sold in their pods, they take a scant 30-40 minutes to cook with no pre-soaking.

It doesn’t take long for our energetic group to shell the 2  kilos we bought yesterday at the market. The large thumbnail sized pearls fill the bowl.

As the beans cook in a broth of their own making w/ leeks, carrots, thyme, bay, peppercorns & a bit of bacon the crew starts work on sorting out the pork rillettes we started yesterday.

 Hand work is good work and the piece of charnu or coppa that we simmered for 4 hours yesterday falls apart and mixes with the gelée and fat from the confit.

Once seasoned, tasted and potted in a group of little bowls, we covered the rillettes with a layer of duck fat before storing in the fridge.

While we worked, we stopped for a simple mid-day snack- fresh tomatoes, more rillettes, and a salad of green beans dressed with Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s gift- Pistachio Oil!

Fatally delicious, with a sweet nutty taste, the haricots verts bath in this green glory accompanied by a slice or two of freshly cured pork tenderloin.

The Chapolard’s latest’s pig offering to the Grrl’s Meat Camp crew was the source for the 18-inch long tenderloin, salted, peppered and hung for 2 weeks in my Piggery Larder. This might be my newest, favorite muscle to cure and you Charcutepalooza’ers had better start sourcing your good mature pork now!

Next we teased out the bones from the duck legs we had confited, they make a much nicer presentation in the cassoulet. I’ll tell you more about that later this week.

We cooked the saucisse de toulouse, browned up some andouillettes, and assembled the whole savoury package in a Not brother’s cassole. The day ended around Camont’s table as a smattering of rain drops officially crowned this Cassoulet season. Let the beans begin!

Kate’s Official Camp Cassoulet Recipe here!

Could this be your Perfect Pig on an October morning?

The Agen market is full of surprises on a perfect fall morning.

Today, shopping for quince, cress, and cilantro I ran into a drove of pigs.

Free-range, pasture-raised French pigs.

Like a stage setting, simplicity itself- one knife, a cleaver, a wooden block,

& a smile.

Julien Veyrac

of Tournon d’Agenais

No one was more surprised than me to meet the new butcher boy on the block

and discover some damn good looking charcuterie and fresh pork.

Merci, Julien for taking over the family farm.

See you next Wednesday for your andouillette-

my secret ingredient for an onctuous cassoulet.

Wednesdays- Agen Central Market

Sunday Grasse Matinee- hatching ideas

I love it when I feel I am in the middle of something. It doesn’t happen often being a bit of a “living on the edge” sort of person- in all senses. But when it does, I feel that delicious “a-ha!” moment welling up out of my back brain and jumping out of my mouth onto The Keyboard.

• A-ha! Locavorism is my way of being a lazy bum- what’s growing outside the door? dandelions? rosemary? rosehips?
• A-ha! Organic Gardening is also wonderfully lazy, no schedules to follow for spraying or bottles of poison to sort out by use by date.
• A-ha! Canning & Preserving in small batches is fast and easy. 4 jars of quince here, 5 jars of salsa there; faster than going to the supermarket.
• A-ha! Butchering & Charcuterie making on the farm with artisan French butchers is part of the yearly cycle here.
• a-ha! Farm-to-table does work when you live surrounded by fertile fields in a wealth agriculturally based society. “France” in a word.
• A-ha! Urban farming works as long as you have Wi-Fi and can Google “mysterious chicken diseases”.
• A-ha! The Back-to-the-Land movement I joined in the 70′s on Lopez Island, WA never went away, it just got better music.

So when the I see this big kahuna wave swelling around me,  I’ve been sitting on my long French board for about 20 years, it makes me want to start paddling faster and faster. Catch that wave now! And at last, I can be the #1 Surfer French Farm Queen-Dudette in town.

This week’s wave is all over the web on blogs and news sites. Kim Severson writes an article at the NYT  about  some of the of the problems people are having raising chickens in an urban environment. And today, Alex Williams writes about the new “do-it-yourself butchery” taking place around the country in shops, cooking schools and well as bars. Like preaching to the choir, I want to join in and shout Amen! or Hallelujah! After all, I learn by doing, too. And while I want to encourage and applaud these Good Food neophytes, I want to bang them on the head, too.

Like parents that think Easter chicks are cute- for a week, I imagine those chickens abandoned by someone who found out that a living breathing animal eats, poops and needs attention just like we do.  I think about the wasted meat not cooked from that lovingly raised porker by someone whose stomach was turned by the smell of too much raw meat or the serial killer smell of fresh blood. I know some of that good meat will end up in the garbage uncooked. I know what happens not just because I see it when fresh students and interns show up in France all starry-eyed or because I have years of experience of sheltering the delicate Gourmet-reading gourmand from knowing too ‘much ado about foie gras’, or the ‘truth behind truffles’.   I know what happens because I, too, have been there. And I am willing to admit it.

I’ve learned a lot these two decades of eating France. Yet, I still have a lot to learn.  About Charcuterie- did you know that the age of the pig (minimum 12 months) affects the acid level produced in the meat muscle and thus affecting the quality and curing of the jambons, saucissons and chorizo?  I didn’t either until this summer when Camas D., Jonathon K. and I sat down at teh lunch table with the Brothers Chapolard for a Q&A about their pig farm and artisan charcuterie operation.  About Chickens- after a year with my own layers  (11 hens- 1 rooster) and losing a couple to neighbor dogs (including Bacon the teenage gangsta pack member),  I am soooo glad I have chicken-raising neighbors who coached me through my first crisis (one too many rooster) and told JK and me exactly where to stick the knife. The Coq au Vin was as good as any I have cooked and eaten.

Interested to learn more? Not on the web but live and in person with people who love their food and make it too. It’s easy this winter. Come to France (air fares are looking good, children!) this November (read about it here) or meet me in the North West this New Year 2010 as  I pack my Gascon bags with lots of ideas and tons of experience on making cassoulet, rendering duck fat, confit and natural foie gras with Neal Foley on his Podchef Island and Robert Reynolds at his wonderful Chef’s Studio in Portland.

Now about that wave… let’s keep it swelling. There are a lot of delicious rides ahead.

Dog days… too hot to cook.

About the coolest place on this Gascon planet is under the oak trees, in the ‘parc’ between the boule-au-drome and potager, within earshot of the chicken yard (tais-toi, Henri IV, it’s middle of the afternoon already!). That just happens to be where I moored my movable office this summer. A good thing, too!

This is the summer that was. Hot. Sultry. Summery. Not enough rain to keep the garden watered but the tomatoes are great! Hot enough to sleep with the fans on all night and drown out the aforementioned rooster’s night song.  A real rare hot Gascon summer where a good wet thunderstorm is what we need.

However, these dry days are perfect for harvesting the purple pod beans given to me by Robert Hammond at Honeyman Creek Farm. The little hand written package said that they came over the Oregon Trail in the 1850′s and now they are growing here at Camont in SW France. What seemed like an abundance of beans on the vine, now looks merely like one good cassoulet’s worth.  But that’s going to be a great Cassoulet- a l’Americaine!

When Vetou Pompele stopped by to sit in the shade, gossip and help me shuck beans, I dipped into ‘the piggery’ (the larder for those not used to Camont’s layout)  for a fast food lunch… French fast food. Vetou plucked some ripe coeur de boeuf tomatoes and three jars later plus one bottle, we were ready to schuck,  sort, and talk story the rest of the long hot day.

A Three Jar Lunch

1. pate de campagne ’09- this was a yet another taste test and yes, the was just enough salt and piment d’espelette.
2. estouffade or escaoudoune- a gascon version of pulled pork cooked with onions and sweet wine
3. confiture de tomates et chilis- my own potager version inspired by New Zealand friends. Hot, sweet and tangy!

After the lazy meal under glass, (actually it entailed hours of cooking but weeks ago!), I got down to business and nudged my faithful hound aside for another hot afternoon tradition- the Nap Attack. oh, these dog days…

Cassoulet- Kate’s Basix French Kitchen Recipe

Cassoulet Recipe

Developed at “Camp Cassoulet”– a Kate Hill French Kitchen Adventure.

This is the basic, bonafide, easy to prepare, authentic, traditional, real, regional version of cassoulet that I prepare, teach, cook and eat in my French Kitchen. The emphasis is on careful combining of very good ingredients, slow cooking and hearty enjoyment. I use duck confit and sausage de Toulouse, ventrèche ( salt cured pork belly), and pork rind for the meats. This is not gosple but pretty close. As much a state of mind as a recipe, this Cassoulet should feed your spirit as well as your belly. Invite a few friends- make it a party. That’s what Camp Cassoulet is about.

This makes a large cassoulet that fills a 4-liter cassole and feeds 8 people easily.

Step 1: the beans

Ingredients:

• beans -1 kg dried beans (tarbais, coco, lingots, or other plump thin skinned white bean (for dried beans- soak several hours, over night or cover with water, bring to boil and let sit one hour.)
• 1 onion- peeled
  
• one whole carrot
  
• 2 cloves
• 2 garlic cloves
• Thick slice of ventrèche (pancetta), salt pork, bacon or ham ends.
• Ham bone or hock
• Fresh pork rind-(couenne) about a 4-by-12 inch strip or about 100gr, rolled and tied with a string
• Bouquet garni- bay, thyme and parsley stems.
• black peppercorns- a dozen slighty crushed
  

Place all of the above ingredients in a large pot, cover with 2 litres of water; because of the addition of the ham bone there is no need to season with salt at this stage. The seasoning can be adjusted when the cassoulet is put together.
Bring the bouillon to a boil then turn down to simmer and let cook gently for 1 hour or until beans are just barely tender. How do you tell if the beans are done?The skins go papery and begin to collapse and the cooking liquid is milky.

Step 2: the meat- prepare while the beans are cooking.

Ingredients: This is where you can be flexible using fresh sausage, preserved duck or goose, ham or cured pork, lamb shanks, etc. We used:

• Duck- confit de canard- one/half leg per person (note: after slipping off most of the softened congealed fat from the surface of the duck legs, we trimmed any excess skin so as to leave just a covering to protect the meat. We jointed the thigh from the drumstick and then teased the thigh bone out resulting in a neat little package of confit meat that is easier to cut in the plate.)
• Saucisse de Toulouse- about 500 grams or about 15 cm/6 inches per person. This is a fresh pork sausage made from primarily the shoulder meat and seasoned with salt and pepper. Nothing else.
• Saucisse de Couenne- I love how these succulent sausages made with lean pork meat and the soft rind taste. They sort of explode with flavour in the cassoulet.

Brown all of the abo
ve; the duck confit in a sauté pan and the sausages we cooked over the grill, however, they could have been pan browned as well. You want a nice hot fire to brown the skins and it’s preferable to not cook the sausages 100% at this stage as they will continue to cook in the cassoulet and give their juices to the broth. Note: Because we buy the sausage in one long link we made a pretty spiral that may be browned as a whole on one side then turned over in one piece to cook the other side.We did this on a grill over the hot ashes of the log fire.

Step 3: to assemble the cassoulet

The traditional cassole bottom is just half of the diameter as the top, making a deep slant-sided glazed terracotta pot (see pictures). Remove the bouquet garni, ham bones, onion, carrot and rind from the beans. I chop the onion, carrot and rind into small bean-size pieces and take the tender meat off the ham bone then return all to the beans and gently stir in. USing a slotted spoon, the cassole is then layered with the beans, the confit and pieces of toulouse and rind sausage then finished with a layer of beans. Adjust the seasoning of the broth from the beans; a little salt, some more black pepper and pinch of piment d’esplette. the tweaked bouillon/bean stock is wonderfully savoury. Now add this liquid to the cassoles until the beans are just covered.Any remaining bouillon should be saved for basting if needed or making bean soup with leftovers.

Step 4- To cook the cassoulet

Slip the cassole into a very hot oven (around 450’ F/ 275’C); turn down the oven after 30 minutes to medium heat- 350′ F/175′C and then let the cassoulet bake slowly as long as you can. The cassoulet in the electric oven is nicely browned in about 1-1/2 to 2 hours; ‘break’ the crust by pushing into down into the juices two or three more times. A wonderful crust forms during cooking so there is no need for a sprinkle of breadcrumbs* as the beans and starchy sauce do this by themselves. Cassoulets are not fatty and are nicely done in about 2 hours. If you start preparing the cassoulet at around 3 pm and you’ll be sitting at the table by eight pm. This could be done in advance- all or in part by cooking the beans, and or assembling before baking.

Step 5: to serve

Pour a glass of hearty red wine like a Madiran, Cahors or Zinfandel, break the crust on top at the table, ladle the steaming cassoulet into dishes and prepare to be very full and very warm as stories are told around the kitchen table well into the night!