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!

Projet Cochon- the Butcher & the Kids

The white blackboard read: Project- “dans le cochon tout est bon” . And so it was.

This week, twenty-four French lycée students between 16-20 years old and their professors M. Franck LAPIERRE and M. Jean Marc BOUILLY allowed three American kitchen-crashers to look over their shoulders as Dominique Chapolard, artisan butcher and pork producer, demonstrated in the expansive  school kitchen that “in the pig, all is good!”

The attentive white-clad chefs-in-training crowded around as M. Chapolard reconstructed the whole pig carcass, piece by piece, organ by organ. Silence reigned as Dominique, our master butcher mentor here at Camont, explained what goes into making good pork from field to table.

Only when he split the skull to reveal the tiny brain did squeamish teenage yelps erupt.  Quickly silenced by Chef Lapierre, he teased them that they see more blood on the horror films they watch. After the initial hour of dissection, as the muscle groups began to resemble familiar meat cuts, this next generation of France’s good cooks began to chop and grind, season and taste, while the scent of Gascony’s prized pork filled the kitchen. A hind leg became a Jambon, a shoulder a Roti de Porc. The large rib cage transformed into ventreche, poitrine and travers. Legs broke down into jarret and pied de porc while the caul fat was washed and leaf lard rendered out before grattons were drained and pressed into a terrine.

This fine piggy day was a part of “Cooking at the Source-Gascony“, a collaboration between Robert Reynold’s Chef’s Studio in Portland, Oregon and my own Kitchen-at-Camont. We spent the morning with our good friend and farmer/butcher Dominique Chapolard as he did a day long demonstration for the students of  the Lycee Jacques-de-Romas in neraby Nerac. For upcoming Duck workshops in the U.S. and France consult our program pages.

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

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!