Cassoulet My Way by The Careless Cook

 

Cassoulet My Way by The Careless Cook

 

Cassoulet is a traditional French dish that started in southeastern France, on the border with Spain and Andora, and like all good things…especially food…it spread across the country and into every French household. You may see a recipe for “Classic” cassoulet, but rest assured that every mother in France has her own recipe. Finding the original recipe is as difficult as finding the Garden of Eden and resisting a bite of the apple, offered by a lovely lady wearing fig leaves and smiling suggestively.

 

By the way, who taught the serpent to talk before language was invented?  I’d guess sign language, but serpents don’t have hands and can’t blink their eyes to signal “One if by mouth, Two if you’ll settle for a fig.”

 

Originally, like all good dishes that outlast their origin, cassoulet was a peasant dish, whose main ingredients were meat and white beans. After you lock onto those two, do what you will and nobody’s going to call you a liar, at least not to your face.  Hence the expression, Watch your back! Itself a gymnastic event.  Only Marie Antoinette was able to accomplish that, but she lost her head over it on her first try.

 

So, with the spread of cassoulet, it’s no wonder, as I sipped brandy and pondered what was in my pantry, that I called my dish Cassoulet My Way.

 

After all, a recipe is just the start of the process…..no, wait a minute….curiosity is the start, next comes a recipe, and then the high point is “Well, watta ya know, I don’t got no duck fat.  Gonna have to wing it.”

 

Some things I left out:  duck fat, chicken with bones and skin, and soaking dried cannellini beans overnight.   But, let’s not fight about it, especially since I’m the one pouring the brandy and feeding the suffering masses by simplifying your work in the kitchen, allowing you to create a dish that will delight your family, and/or loved ones.

 

But enough listening to the pitter-patter of little tongues.  Let’s get cookin!

 

FIRST, A VERY IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER.  THIS DISH WILL COOK FOR SIX HOURS IN A 300ºF OVEN.   CONSIDER MAKING IT THE NIGHT BEFORE OR PREPARING IT AT NOON AND SERVING IT FOR SUPPER.

 

Ingredients:

 

2 cans of cannelloni beans drained and rinsed

1 32 oz carton of chicken broth

3 packets of unflavored gelatin

4 strips of thick bacon, diced

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

2 to 4 links of garlic sausage (I used 2 links of mild Italian)

2 shallots, or one half of a sweet onion, peeled and chopped

1 cup baby carrots

1 cup celery, sliced

whole head of garlic, peeled, but not chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Puttin’ It Together – use a big pot or Dutch oven

Add the bacon to the pot on low heat and cook until the fat is rendered and the bacon only partly crisp. Set the bacon aside, dust the chicken thighs with salt and pepper, place in the rendered fat and cook until lightly browned on both sides.

 

Meanwhile, put half the chicken stock in a separate pot and when heated, sprinkle in the gelatin and stir well.  Set aside.

 

Remove the chicken thighs and add the sausages, shallots, and garlic to the pot. Cook until the sausage, the shallots, and the garlic cloves are lightly browned.

 

Remove the sausages and slice medium thick.  (see photo)

Note:  Neither the chicken thighs nor the sausage will be cooked through, but don’t worry; they will cook in the stew a long time.

Finishing up: Add the carrots, celery, bacon, sausage, and beans to the pot.  Stir well.  Add all 32 oz of chicken broth, then place the chicken thighs on top, pushing them into the broth. Bring to a low boil.

 

Put the uncovered pot in the 300ºF oven and cook for two hours.

 

A crust will form.  Break the crust and cook another 4 hours, breaking the crust from time to time.  In the last hour, a good portion of the liquid will have evaporated.

 

Remove the pot from the oven, and serve in bowls with toast points.  Add chopped parsley if you choose.   

 

Time to crack open that bottle of dry white wine!

 

Salut! Now sing La Marseillaise without spilling your wine!