After my last post on making the duck confit, I kind of left things hanging. Sorry about that, but I was busy finishing a draft of my novel during the last few weeks. Said draft is out into the world, or at least in the hands of six lovely beta readers for now. I told my family last night I feel like I just walked into the mall, took all my clothes off, and asked people to tell me what they think. I have a very thick skin when it comes to my writing, but there’s something very raw and tender about sending my 98,000 word “baby” off to be (intentionally) torn into shreds by critical readers.
Back to Cassoulet…In my last post, I cover making Duck confit. Today I’ll run through what else goes into our cassoulet with a bunch of pictures. (Still trying to figure out alignment issues…sorry if it’s not all pretty on your browser.) For the pork roast recipe, you can find the general directions here.
And, here’s a link to where you can watch a timelapse of putting it all together. I apologize in advance for the vertical format. I had to stick the phone into something to hold it while I did the timelapse, and doing it the right way wasn’t working. The only thing that is missing is the final step–chopped parsley mixed with bread crumbs go over the top of the beans. The cassoulet goes in the oven for an hour, then you push the browned crumbs down into the beans and let it brown again.
Pork roast in marinade plus prepared veggies.I used Julia Child’s classic pork roast recipe. I let it marinate for a couple of days before cooking it for the cassoulet.
The roast is browned and veggies are added before it bakes in the oven.I deglazed the pan after the roast was done cooking with wine and saved the resulting liquid for the final preparation of the cassoulet.
We found some French garlic sausage to use, but you can use kielbasa found at the grocery store. Just don’t use breakfast sausage. You want something with a savory garlic flavor.
The garlic sausage is cut into quarter chunks and browned. I let it drain on paper towels before putting into the cassoulet. I bet pouring the leftover fat from the browning onto the beans would be tasty, too.
The bouquet garni for the beans is pretty important. Parsley, thyme, garlic and bay flavor the beans.
One inch chunks of salt pork are first boiled then drained before adding to the beans.
The beans have been through a quick boil/soak. Now they are in their long cook with sliced onions, the salt pork and the bouquet garni. They are cooked until just tender as they will be cooked again in the cassoulet.
Here you see everything ready to put together, except the beans. They are on the stove. The duck, pork, sausage, juice from the duck and pork, salt pork are ready to be layered together.
Crusty Cassoulet, ready to serve.
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