The Cassoulet: Day Three

The final post of the epic three-part cassoulet series.  It’s been exhausting, and I’m looking forward to posting about normal (abnormal) stuff again.  Can’t say that writing about this massive cauldron of meat and beans has made me feel less like post-holiday bloated.  Let’s wrap this up.

Sunday

At 7:00 the morning after it headed into the oven, with Janet just starting to stir, I pulled the pot of duck confit and put the duck legs in a tupperware container.

Not visually appealing, but pretty remarkable.  The duck meat was falling apart and the thick fatty skin had rendered away to almost nothing.  Insert self deprecating New Years resolution comment here

The combined smell of the duck, pork fat, and olive oil was pretty awesome, if not borderline unpleasant upon first waking up in the morning.  Duck confit can keep for a couple weeks, if not longer, when refrigerated packed in the cooking fat, but since I planned to use it later in the day I didn’t take that step.  The tupp headed into the fridge and the fat was reserved and sealed into two large mason jars for the next time I want to confit something.

In order to get the fresh bread crumbs for the cassoulet crust a little dried out, I threw half a loaf of ciabatta into the food processor and laid it out on a plate to sit all day.

I referenced Molto Mario last week and my love for his thinly veiled contempt for health-conscious guests.  My favorite outright dismantling by Mario was when he made someone look like a complete ass for asking if he was going to let his breadcrumbs get dried out before using them.  Well, um, so, take THAT Mario!

In a change of direction, the meat and bean ragout came out of the fridge looking, well, a little cement-like.

Looked like a solid block, like you could build the foundation of a house off of it

Beyond letting the flavors come together and rest, the refrigeration allowed the fat to settle on top and solidify.  Made it easier to scrape some of the excess fat off and throw it away.

Once the fat skimming was done, I let the ragout come up a bit closer to room temperature so I could deal with the unenviable task of sorting through it by hand.  That’s right, I had to scrub up like a surgeon and pull out every nasty bit, bone, and herb bouquet to get rid of the inedible stuff.  Lets fast forward to removing that first bony chunk of pork.

The top shows how awful I was at skimming fat off the top when the fat looked exactly like white beans.  Also, I’ve done a lot of unpleasant things for this blog, and this whole sorting process was up there.  I’m just glad no one knew that I had to do this until now

The bouquet garni and pork skin bundles went right into the trash (after far more searching to find that 4th skin bundle than I wish to discuss).  The garlic head was reserved for later use and the bones/skin/cartilage were separated from the edible hock and back meat then tossed.  I cubed the pork into bite sized pieces and was left with this decent sized pile.

The hocks were a complete disappointment, far less meat than I remembered was hiding amidst the bone and skin.  Sure, the hocks made the whole process feel authentic, but I think I’ll stick with shoulder meat next time

The remaining bean, vegetable, and salty pork ragout went back onto low heat to slowly get back to a more viscous consistency.  While that heated, I filled the food processor with the poached salt pork from the day before, the squeezed out contents of the reserved garlic head, a couple cloves of fresh garlic and a splash of white wine.

Never really considered putting meat in the processor before.  I did something somewhat similar a few weeks ago when I put chili through the blender for use as a pasta sauce.  This seemed far less questionable

After a good couple spins, I had a meat paste the likes of which I’d never considered before.

Couldn’t even fathom tasting this, but seemed like an excellent flavor addition to the mixture on the stovetop

I stirred the meat paste into the reheating bean mixture and, once it was folded in, added the pork back to the ragout.

Gives some context on how large the previous bowl full o’ meat was. I am 60% positive that a Paleo restaurant called “Bowl Full ‘O Meat” would be a huge success in Boston

With the meat stirred back in, I let the cassoulet simmer for 15-20 minutes.  While that bubbled, I preheated the oven to 400F and took the duck legs out of the fridge for baking.  One more shot of the now-cooled legs nicely arranged on a baking dish.

Again, grey/brown meat does this stuff a complete disservice.  Duck confit is so freaking tasty

After 20 minutes in the oven, the meat was sizzling and heated all the way through, so the thighs came out of the oven and the temp went down to 325F.  After waiting a few minutes for the meat to cool slightly, the meat pulled easily off the bone in large chunks.  With the meat shredded, I chopped the skin into very small pieces so that they would add flavor/fat without noticeable texture.

I wish the skin had been crispy so that I could eat handfuls of it.  Next time around I might do the shorter version confit that makes for crispier skin.  Crispy poultry skin is fat dude kryptonite

With the duck shredded and the cassoulet mixture bubbling on the stovetop, it was time for the final round of assembly.  I ladled off half of the contents of the pot and reserved in a bowl then began the layering.

Most of the liquid had cooked off, but this was still only half of the pork and bean ragout.  This ended up being an effing cauldron of food

Ahhhhh good god that looks freaking ridiculous. Just a thick layer of shredded tender pork fat poached duck.  Reediculous

The other half of the pork/bean ragout and a couple cups of duck stock over the top.  The instruction to add stock looked incredibly questionable at this point

Big Yellow headed back into the 325F oven for another hour and a half.

While the cassoulet cooked, I pulled out the bin of rabbit sausage which had a solid 24 hours of flavor meshing at that point.

About how it looked going into the fridge, guess I just wanted to remind you.  It also carried a whole lot of sausage stank with it at this point, so that was new

Like a Christmas morning in the Ryan household, the sausage meat was slapped into patties and pan fried until well browned on both sides.

Sausage patties, a love affair that began with the college cafeteria breakfast buffet.  Horrifying for you, but everyone needs to embrace their inner fat kid and order eggs benedict with sausage patties instead of Canadian bacon at least once in their life

The patties were transferred to a pile of paper towels after cooking to drain, and cut in half once cooled.

After the hour and a half of cooking was up, the almost complete cassoulet came out of the oven and I reduced the oven temp to 275F.

Darkened color, less liquid, even a little delicious looking fat coagulating on top.  Lots of good signs at this point

Per the delicious sounding instructions, I gently stirred the skin that formed on the surface back into the top of the cassoulet, careful not to disrupt the layer of duck confit in the center.  Once the top was well mixed again, I pressed the sausage pieces into  the cassoulet, covering them as much as possible.

I wish every recipe ended wrapped with “shove some sausage in there”.  Like this cauldron of food wasn’t rich and hearty enough beforehand.  How the eff are there any skinny French people?

Then a thick coating of fresh (slightly staled) breadcrumbs and a solid drizzle of olive oil over the top.  You know, just when you thought it couldn’t get any more decadent.

An appropriate time to point out how close we are to the full capacity of Big Yellow.  A 9.5 quart capacity dutch oven.  I am still amazed that this was finished in less than 3 days without bringing it to a soup kitchen

This headed back into the oven for another hour of cooking during which time I reflected on how many minutes I had spent on it in the previous three days and whether it could possible be worth it.  I got an additional bit of time after it came out of the oven and rested for 20 minutes.

Had no patience for the whole “break the crust at least three times” crap.  ThePeteIsOn.com, disregarding people who know what they’re doing (like Julia Child) since 2010

I’d imagine that people who make the crazy cakes on cake shows rarely want to eat their cakes; they wouldn’t want to know something that took so long was just OK.  Also, I have never understood the appeal of cake shows.  Every cake seems impossible and the car ride is always hazardous to the cake; how many times do we need to watch this?

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I had some anxiety about tasting the cassoulet.  Especially since my meat orgy in a bowl was being upstaged by Taylor’s delicious seitan bourguignon.  But I had to barrel ahead.

First discouraging step was realizing that the casosulet doesn’t come out in the perfectly layered, lasagna-like portions you would hope for.  More just a cafeteria line spoonful.

Seitan bourguignon bottom, cassoulet top right, undercooked green beans at the top left.  This is a fair view of the cassoulet; it plated like a thanksgiving dinner that has been chopped up and stirred together into one pile.  Whuppah Conman style!!!

Alright, where to begin.  Or end.  The beans had cooked to the consistency of mashed potatoes whipped with lots of cream and butter, without the cream and butter.  They had a silky, uniform consistency.  The flavor was heavily meaty throughout, with the duck broth and little bites of salty pork throughout.  In general, you had no idea what you were eating at any point since the stewed pancetta, salt pork, hock, and back meat all had the same texture.

The only two items that were easy to discern were the sausage and duck.  The sausage was fuerte, with the most flavorful aspects coming from the sweet bourbon, bay leaves, and allspice.  It was so strong that it overpowered everything else in a single bite, making those mouthfuls with big chunks of sausage my least favorite.  On the flipside, the duck was the best part by far.  Huge chunks of rich, tender, shredded duck making every forkful they participated in delicious.

And finally, it’s all done.  I’d make it again, despite the time commitment.  I’d buy sausage, stock, and stick with just shoulder meat instead of backs/hocks next time.  The only area I wouldn’t skimp on was the homemade duck confit which was worth every second.  Pretty delicious on the whole.

Will try to get a post up before I head to 5 days of fish market exploration in Eleuthra.  I think Kristi is referring to it as a family vacation.

The Cassoulet: Day Two

First, some pictures I forgot to add to the previous post.

The pork for the cassoulet spent Friday night well salted and peppered to draw any excess liquid out.  True to the overall idea of “stuff lying around in a French farmhouse”, the pork cuts weren’t of the luxurious variety: hocks and meat from the backbone.

Ham hocks.  “Hocks” is such an unpleasant term for pig ankles.  Actually, let’s stick with hocks

Country style ribs.  Anything labeled as “country style” at the supermarket means you are getting leftovers.  Their were bones sticking out of these pieces in all directions, not sure how there is any relation to “ribs” going on here

Now, I was really going to bed.  This time for realsies guys.

Saturday

These headers are starting to feel like The Shining or something.

First step of the day was straining off the duck stock and reserving the liquid.  It got gooood and gelatinous overnight.

I try to strain my broth through cheese cloth every time and always end up screwing it up and burning my hands on the hot soaking cloth.  So it ends up being foggy, partially strained broth.  Every time.  My financial planner shakes his head at my annual cheesecloth budget

After draining the liquid from the (doubled in size) fully soaked beans and moving them to the fridge, the next step was getting the salt pork ready for the stew.  First up was separating the 3/4lb slab of into its component parts: fat, skin, and meat.

Took Momere’s advice and sought out the meatiest slab of salt pork I could find.  When in doubt, always trust the centenarian who actually used to haggle with people in the process of taking apart an animal.  Not sure if I’d be able to get in touch with Ms. Smithfield or Mr. Hormel

The skin and meat had a few different roles in the cassoulet, so half the meat and all of the skin headed into a pan covered with water for a solid 45-60 minute simmer.  The remaining meat went back into the fridge and the fat headed into the freezer.

Next item up was a little off script: ground snowshoe hare.  That’s some sort of wild rabbit according to my research.  Oh, and the label on the bag of it I was given gave some hints too.

Of course this came from Uncle Billy.  He got a couple snowshoe hare last year and ground up the meat with bacon fat and seasoning.  You know the Hyundai Sonata, “Why?” commercial with the little kid bugging his neighbor?  I generally think that is eerily similar to how I ask Billy food questions

Most recipes for a traditional French Toulouse-style sausage consist of pork, pork fat, garlic, allspice, fresh bay leaves, and cognac.  As usual, I freelanced a bit and assumed that French farmhouse life = lots of hunting and eating rabbit.  So, I decided to build off of the rabbit and pork base Bill provided and add in additional ingredients to make it more Toulouse-y.

First step was peeling the garlic and cubing the pork fat trimmings that, along with the salt pork fat, would supplement the fat content of the sausage.  Rabbit meat is very lean so even with the bacon Billy added, it still needed a lot more fat to be closer to the authentic pork sausages used normally.

Stop and Shop Dedham doesn’t exactly have Sam The Butcher working behind the counter.  It doesn’t help that I whisper when I request odd ingredients, but I am positive he was over 90% deaf and considering punching me.  When he told me he didn’t have pork fat and I pointed to the table of pork fat behind him you would have thought I called his wife ugly or something

In order to keep fat from becoming mushy in the grinding process, the pork trimmings joined the salt pork fat in the freezer for about an hour before being prepped.  With the pork near frozen, the fat and garlic went into the meat grinder with the fine grind plate to be added to the ground rabbit meat.

Looked like a mix of meat and fat on the board, but it was mostly just fat.  This is still about half the fat that would go into a similarly sized traditional Toulouse sausage, the recipes I saw were a Pete-like 40% fat

With the garlic and fat fully ground, I lifted the bowl into the mixer area and inserted the paddle mixer into the Kitchenaid.  I added 4-5 finely chopped fresh bay leaves, a couple ounces of bourbon (didn’t have cognac), a half teaspoon of allspice, and some salt and pepper to the bowl and left it to mix for a few minutes.  Once the liquid was well folded in and the ingredients were dispersed, the sausage looked like this.

Probably doesn’t look that different to you, but the meat was a lot lighter and way more fragrant with all of the spices.  I read that you should take food fotos with lots of natural light, hence this experimental shot by the window.  I”d give this shot a “meh”

The sausage headed into the fridge to allow the flavors to come together for 24 hours.

It was time to get the main event started in earnest.  Big Yellow hit the stove top with a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium/high to brown the hocks and the cubes of country-style rib meat.  You’ve seen me brown meat before, so lets cut to the result.

Hocks still not winning you over?  You’ve got some serious willpower, sir or madam.  I’d imagine you’ll need a snack or something though, no one can avoid hunger looking at that plate

With the meat out, a pile of mirepete (refresher: mirepoix + garlic & salty pork) went into big yellow.

Quarter pound of pancetta and some of the diced salt pork rounded out the mirepete.  I really think this whole “mirepete” thing is gonna catch on!  I am pretty sure I overheard someone using the term on The Chew the other day.  How awful is The Chew?  I miss the good old days of Batali being condescending to his guests on Molto Mario

After a few minutes cooking together, I deglazed with a solid pour of white wine and added a couple chopped peeled tomatoes and a whole head of garlic.

I actually did let this cook as shown for a minute or two because I forgot about it, so for once your terror at the unincorporated ingredient shot would be merited

While that simmered for a few minutes, I finished tying up two of the items that would cook and rest with the cassoulet for the next 18 hours but would be easy to find and remove (hopefully): The bouquet garni and pork skin.

Couple stems of celery, thyme, parsley, and fresh bay leaves.  Looks nicer than anything I normally cook with

Pork skin bundles, much more par for my course.  I struggled with tying up these slippery little emeff’ers and Kristi entered the kitchen as I was about to whip one that kept unravelling across the kitchen.  Luckily, she helped, and we used teamwork to get these done.  Teamwork!

With the bundles all tied up, it was time for everything to head back into the dutch oven.  The browned pork, skin bundles, and bouquet garni went back in with the mirepete and were completely covered with 8 cups of the duck stock.

It was good to no longer have to stare at the hocks, they were starting to get to me.   Not because I think they are gross, but the browning process didn’t do great things to their appearance and tightened the skin

I brought the pot to a boil and then turned it down to a simmer for an hour and a half.

After an hour and a quarter, I put the beans into a large pot, covered with water, and set over high heat to par boil.  Par boiling is a controversial topic, it’s like the fracking debate of this blog; I don’t really get it so it makes me uncomfortable, but the experts (Joycie) makes me feel like an *ss for opposing it.  Joycie has made it pretty clear that my lack of a 3 minute par boil on Momere Beans means she would never eat them, she considers it that essential.  So, with all recipes I was referencing recommending a par boil, I decided to break my opposition and boiled them for a few.

Once that dark moment (3 moments to be exact) in my cooking life had passed, I drained the beans and added them to Big Yellow.

This was intended to give some perspective on how much two pounds of beans is.  It looked like a lot when I soaked them and looked like a lot when I added them.  Had to trust the internets though

With the beans and meat simmering together for another two hours, it was time to get started on the duck confit.

A quick aside: to confit means to cook slowly in fat, usually goose or duck fat.  Kind of like a low temperature fry or poaching in oil.  The idea is that once the meat has been cured and the salt has flushed out all of the excess liquid, the fat will fill those spaces and leave rich, tender, succulent meat.  And it does work that way.  On the other hand, my gripe is that a one cup container of duck fat from Dartagnan will run you $7-8 and I haven’t been doing much poultry rendering lately.  So I decided to go off the grid and confit in a combination of olive oil and pork fat.

I started by heating equal parts olive oil and lard (about a cup and a half of each).

Yep, gross that this looks tasty to me.  I fully plan to straighten out my eating, go to the gym more regularly, and sleep more starting 1/2/13 and ending some time around 1/6/13

The white lard is from Brother Tim and the darker lard is from Cuttys, which makes me think Cutttys has a little bacon fat blended in with theirs.  Not that it really matters.

With the oil heating to a temperature far below frying but where the fats would melt and blend, I started prepping the overnight cured duck legs for the confit.  First step was a light wiping and rinsing of the excess salt and seasonings from the outside of the thighs.

ThePeteIsOn.com, showcasing odd cooking techniques, unusual meats, and disgustingly long fingers since 2010

There were seven thighs to confit, so the first layer of four were nestled into the bottom of ‘Lil Blue then covered with about 1/3 of the melted fat.  The remaining three thighs were arranged on top and completely covered with the remaining fat.

Dats a good fit.  Not sure if I was doing anything right at this point but that’s why I’m lovable!  Right?  Anyone?

It was around 7PM at this point and we had places to be (we are very popular), so the confit headed into a 185F oven to cook for the next 12 hours.  Big Yellow was also ready to come off the heat and slowly come down to room temperature.

Decent start.  Again, looked like a meaty hambone soup but smelled like so much more.  I was hoping this would end up being more like a shepherds pie than a stew/soup, so I was happy the liquid content seemed to be diminishing

With the cooking complete for day 2, we headed out for the evening and I secretly (loudly) started stressing about the following day.  When we got home, the cooled down ragout headed into the fridge to cool completely overnight and we got to sleep with the intoxicating aroma of cooking duck filling our noses, clothes, and bedding.

The denouement next week.