Cassoulet

January's Daring Cook's Challenge was a perfect one for this cold, snowy month - cassoulet. It's a French stew with lots of meat (usually duck or chicken), white beans and pork. This was honestly the most complicated dish I've ever made for the Daring Cooks. It took 4 days! But then I probably picked the most complicated of the cassoulet recipes they provided.


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.

Source
Cassoulet by Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman (as featured on the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations”)

Yield
Serves 4 - 8

Ingredients
Some of the ingredients were particularly hard to find, so I made a few substitutions. Where it called for duck legs, I used chicken legs. Where it called for duck fat, I used olive oil, and where it called for pork rind I used thick slab bacon.

The cassoulet calls for confit - chicken (or duck) preserved overnight in oil and herbs. Because that has to be done before you start making the cassoulet, the ingredients are listed separately. 


Confit 

• 4 whole Chicken legs, with thigh attached
• Sea salt, for the overnight dry rub
• 4 cups Olive oil
• To taste, fresh ground Black pepper
• 4 sprigs Thyme
• 1 sprig Rosemary
• 1 clove Garlic

Cassoulet

• 5 cups dried white beans like Great Northern or Cannelini - if using canned, double the amount
• 2 lbs. Pork belly, fresh
• 1 Onion, quartered
• 1 lb. thick slab Bacon
• 1 Bouquet garni (2 sprigs parsley, 2 sprigs thyme, 1 bay leaf)
• To taste, salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup Olive oil
• 6 Pork sausages
• 3 Onions, thinly sliced
• 1 clove Garlic, thinly sliced
• 4 Chicken confit legs, above

Directions

Day 1

Confit - Rub the chicken legs generously with sea salt,

place in a shallow dish, cover with plastic, and refrigerate overnight.

Day 2

Confit

Preheat oven to 375ºF

Season chicken legs with black pepper and place in a clean, oven-proof casserole. 

 Add the thyme, rosemary and garlic, 

and pour the olive oil over the legs to just cover.

Cover the dish with foil and put in the oven for 1 hour, or until the skin at the ankle of each leg pulls away from the knuckle. The meat should be tender.

Cool and store in the refrigerator, sealed under the oil.

While that's cooking, it's time to soak the beans. Place the beans in a large bowl and cover with cold water so that there are at least 2 inches of water above the beans. 

Use a very large bowl, the beans will double in size. Soak overnight.

Day 3

Drain and rinse the beans and place in a large pot.

Add the pork belly, the quartered onion, and the bouquet garni.

Cover with water, and bring to a boil.

Reduce to a simmer, cook for 30 minutes. 

Season with salt and pepper to taste, and continue to simmer another 30 minutes, until beans are tender

Let cool for 20 minutes.

Discard the onion and the bouquet.

The onion completely fell apart, so it was more or less impossible to get all of it. The thyme leaves also fell off the stem and into the beans, which wasn't really a problem, as I like thyme, but next time I think I'll wrap the bouquet garni in cheesecloth first.

Remove the pork belly, cut into 2-inch squares, and set aside.

Poultry shears turned out to be the best for this job.

Strain the beans and set aside, reserving the cooking liquid separately.

In a saute pan, heat all but 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers and becomes transparent.

Carefully add the sausages and brown on all sides

Remove the sausages and drain on paper towels.

In the same pan, over medium-high heat, brown the sliced onions, garlic and squares of pork belly from the beans. 

Because of all the water released from the onions, the pork never really browned, as you can see.

Remove from heat and transfer to the blender.

I think this is actually where I messed up, because the recipe first says to cut the pork belly into squares, and then it later refers to the squares of pork rind from the beans, which I didn't use. I'm not sure which they meant to say, but if it was pork rind and not pork belly that I was supposed to use in the blender, then perhaps that's why it turned out so salty in the end. Oh well.

Add 1 tablespoon of the remaining olive oil and puree until smooth. Set aside.

Pre-heat oven to 350ºF.

Place the uncooked bacon in the bottom of a deep, oven-proof non-reactive dish. Line the inside like a pie crust.

Arrange all ingredients in alternating layers - beans, sausage, beans, pork belly, beans, chicken confit, beans, with a dab of onion and pork belly puree between each layer. 

I was only able to fit 3 of the 4 chicken legs in the pot. Guess my dutch oven is a bit small :/

Add enough of the bean cooking liquid to just cover the beans, reserving 1 cup in the refrigerator for later use.

Cook the cassoulet in the oven for 1 hour, reduce the heat to 250ºF, and cook for another hour. 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Refrigerate overnight. 

Day 4

Pre-heat oven to 350ºF, cook the cassoulet for 1 hour.

Break the crust on the top with a spoon and add 1/4 cup of the reserved cooking liquid. 

Reduce the heat to 250ºF, and continue cooking for 15 minutes. 

Serve 

Oddly, even after the hour and 15 minutes in the oven, the chicken wasn't hot all the way through. It was fully cooked, because it had cooked twice before, but it was sort of lukewarm. I might extend it by another 15 minutes to a half hour next time. 

The chicken and sausage were absolutely delicious, this was a really great way of cooking them while preventing them from drying out. The beans, however, were very salty, like I said above, which I do believe was because I was supposed to use pork rind and not pork belly in the blender. I'm still not sure if that was a misreading on my part or if the recipe wasn't clear. Still, though, not bad, it had a lot of  flavor,and  it was very hearty and filling. It'll be a good meal for probably close to a week!