Daring Cooks January 2011 Challenge

Hurrah! The Daring Cooks January Challenge was to make Cassoulet. Last time I had Cassoulet was in Southern France near Carcassonne, and I've been meaning to try making it myself for quite some time. Walking round the walls of Carcassonne in the morning we could smell them starting to make the dish for the lunchtime customers. A wonderful garlic-y waft.



The gap between Christmas and New Year seemed the most logical time to make the recipe. It takes several days to put it all together, so I couldn't see myself feeling inspired once I'm back at the grindstone. Also, since we'd had roast duck for Christmas dinner, the leftovers from that seemed like the perfect starting point for Cassoulet.

So, Monday saw me starting to cook dinner for wednesday.

Here's the method:

I started with breast of lamb: I placed it in a casserole with half an onion, a couple of chopped celery stalks, 1 chopped carrot, some thyme and covered the lot with a glass of white wine and some water. I then put the lid on and cooked it at 140C for 3 hours. I turned and basted the meat 2 or 3 times during the cooking time.
Once it came out of the oven I put the meat between 2 chopping boards, weighed it down with a few tins of beans, and left it for 3 hours. I strained the cooking liquid and put it in a jug in the fridge overnight. Then I chopped the lamb up into long slices, arranged it on a wire rack over a roasting tin and cooked it for 20 minutes at 180C.

I already had a cooked duck leg from Christmas Dinner (otherwise I would have had to roast one at this point), so I chopped the meat off the bone and put that to one side too.

Next up were the beans: I weighed out 200g dried cannelinni beans and covered them in water and left them to soak overnight. The next day I drained the beans, rinsed them a couple of times, then placed them in a heavy based pan. I took the lamb stock out of the fridge, skimmed the fat off the top, and poured the liquid into the pan, topping it up with cold water to cover the beans. Then I added a few sprigs of parsley and a shake of dried thyme (as I had no fresh thyme to hand). I brought this little lot up to the boil, boiled it hard for a couple of minutes, skimmed the top, then turned it down to simmer for about 1hr 20 mins. Once the beans were done I drained them, reserving the liquid again, and fishing out the parsley.

Next were the pork sausages: I twisted each of the 2 sausages into 3 sections and cut them up.

Then, slice 1/2 an onion and 4 garlic cloves finely. Melt about a dessertspoon of duck fat and gently fry the onion. Add the garlic after about 5 mins and continue to fry until the whole lot is soft. Then add a handful of chopped pancetta or streaky bacon. Continue to fry gently for a few more minutes.

Then, layering up the casserole. I started with a layer of beans (1/3 of the quantity) in the bottom of your casserole dish, then added 1/2 of the onion mix, 1/2 of the lamb, 1 or the sausages, 1/2 of the duck slices, repeated the layering, then topped with the final 1/3 of the beans. I poured the stock over the lot, added a little more water until it comes about 2/3 of the way up the mixture. I sprinkled the mix with a small handful of breadcrumbs.
This is what it looked like (remarkably, a lot like it should really!):



I put the mix to one side for several hours for the flavours to develop (overnight is perfect).

The next day, I preheated the oven to 170C and put the casserole in for 1 hour (without the lid); once it had formed a gold crust I stirred it all through, put it back for another hour until another crust had formed, then repeated once more.



At this point I took the cassoulet out of the oven, spooned 2 portions into small casserole pots (there were 2 more portions left over after this), splashed a little more water in, and allowed it about 40 further minutes in the oven.

Once a final crust had formed, I served it with crunchy crusty bread and green salad. Very filling. A very appropriate dinner for a cold winter's day, and goodness I felt like I deserved it after all the effort of cooking it!



Another major hit with Dan (unsurprisingly - lots of fat and meat is always a hit with him!).

BlogChecking lines: Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.
My recipe was a cross between the Anthony Bourdain recipe and Elizabeth David's one from French Country Cooking, adapted slightly to my own tastes and fridge contents.