Cassoulet is one of the favorite meals in our household and something that we make about once a month.
The name might lead you to believe that this is "Fancy French Food", it really isn’t. This is peasant food at its finest, combining basic ingredients with a preparation that brings out the best in them. In this case the ingredients are beans, a tomato based sauce, and inexpensive cuts of meat. Traditionally goose and mutton were the meats of choice, but as the economics of these meats have changed we use pork tenderloin instead.
Although it is time consuming to make it isn’t particularly difficult and on the plus side this recipe makes enough food for two days. It also reheats well, and tastes as good, if not better, after it has sat in the refrigerator overnight. This dish's taste and moxie keep it as a part of our rotation, despite the effort required in preparation.
What you will need:
- 1 lb Beans (great northern or similar)
- 1 lb Pork Confit, previously prepared
- 1 lb Italian Sausage
- 8 oz Bacon, cut into lardons (pictured)
- 2 onions
- 28 oz can of stewed tomatoes or tomato sauce
- Water
- Olive oil
Spices:
- Thyme, Garlic Powder, Salt, Black pepper, Rosemary, Basil, Bay leaf, Paprika, Red pepper (optional)
The preparation will move through four phases: beans, sauce, meats, assembly with a enough time between each to set up for the next. So if you are doing
mise en place I recommend you do it for each phase independently to conserve time and space.
Beans
The first thing you will want to get started is the beans. Before starting sort and rinse your beans (we don’t soak them if you do you will want to have that done already). Add your beans and (approximately) 4 quarts of water to a dutch oven and bring to a boil. While your beans are getting started set aside:
- 1 Onion, quartered
- 3 tsp dried Thyme
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 4 oz bacon cut into lardons
Add everything to the pot and cook until the beans are just tender. This will take 60-120 minutes depending mainly on how fresh your beans are. If you are picky about appearance (we aren’t) you can put your larger spices into a bag made of cheese cloth and/or use a
bouquet garni of fresh herbs.
Sauce
While your beans are cooking, start reheating your confit and start working on the sauce. For this you will need
- 4 oz bacon, cut into lardons
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 28-oz can of stewed tomatoes or tomato sauce
- 1 cup confit juices
- Olive oil (as needed)
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp dried rosemary
- 2 tsp dried basil
- 1 bay leaf, crushed
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp paprika
- ½ tsp red pepper (or to taste)
To prepare the sauce. In a skillet cook your bacon until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crispy and set aside. Sauté your onion in the bacon fat (adding a little Olive Oil if needed) until it is just starting to caramelize, add your spices and let them toast for about a minute. Transfer onions and spices to a sauce pan and add tomatoes and confit juices. Let this simmer for about 30 minutes or until you are ready for assembly.
Meat
In the same skillet you cooked the bacon in cook your sausage until browned and cooked through and set it aside. Break up you confit into bite sized pieces and cook in the same skillet until it is crispy on the edges, set aside. At this point there should be some juices left in the pan which you should add to your sauce. You can optionally deglaze the pan with a little red wine or brandy and add that to the sauce also.
Assembly
With all of the precursors done you are finally ready for assembly.
To assemble put half you beans into a 9"x13" baking dish, followed by half of your sausage and confit and half of your sauce. Repeat these layers for the other half of your ingredients and top with breadcrumbs. Normally we use panko, but in this case we had to substitute crushed saltines due to the untimely intervention of a certain 3yr old. In any case bake the assembled dish at 375 for 30 minutes until the top is brown and crispy and the sauce is bubbling. Remember that everything is already cooked when it goes into the oven, so the finished temperature is about preference, not food safety.
This would be ideally accompanied by a good crusty bread (Peter Reinhart’s pain a l'ancienne if you have the time and energy) and a green vegetable.
Music to cook by
If you are going to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen it is essential, at least for, me to have some good music playing to keep the energy level high. With that in mind I’m going to take a nod from Carol Blymier and include some music to cook by. While making the food pictured above the background music, and one of the staples in my kitchen rotation, was On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel. Which works well because it is and awesome album and there is enough variety on the disk that you can leave it on repeat while your cooking and it won’t get stale.