As many of you know I live in Devon with my darling boyfriend and equally darling dogs. I love it here and I am thankful every day that we live where we do. However, because of Rory's job he travels a lot and is often away for long periods of time. I am also very lucky to have wonderful friends who travel near and far to visit so I am never lonely for long. This weekend was one such weekend, with friends from London and Devon dropping in for supper and a sleepover.
I decided to make cassoulet as the temperatures were dropping and I had never made one before - I like to try everything at least once! From the age of 2 until 7, I lived in the south of France to enjoy an idilyc life of long summers running free and swimming all day, and cosy winter nights eating my mother's amazing cassoulet and snuggling in front of open fires. I wanted to try and recreate this feeling of a cosy night in and cassoulet felt like a natural choice. Little did I realize that it takes AT LEAST three days to make including making the duck confit. (TIP: You will have left over goose fat from the confit process. Heat it up again if necessary then put through a sieve and you can use this to make the best roast potatoes known to man. Discard the remains in the sieve).
I chose an Argentinian Malbec to drink and served with green beans and crusty bread. My Mother gave me her top tips and I called her several times for advice (thank you mummy) and I looked at a few recipes online but mainly I just followed my nose and did what I thought would work. I also had trouble sourcing a few things - dried beans which is why I used tinned cannellini- and pork rind so I used what I though was a good substitute - lardons. No doubt I will get a lot of people saying it's not a proper cassoulet but this is my version and it was bloody marvellous!
Serves 6-8
You will need:
A cast iron/casserole dish that can go in the oven
To make the duck confit:
4 whole duck legs
500g goose fat
1tsp black pepper corns
4 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
handful of coarse sea salt
To make the cassoulet:
25g goose fat
4 confit duck legs, jointed
8 Toulouse sausages
140g smoked lardons
140g streaky bacon
2 x 400g cannellini beans, drained
6 garlic cloves, left whole
2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large red onion, roughly chopped
2 large plum tomatoes, cut into 8 wedges
500 ml good chicken stock
bouquet garni or a good quality vegetable stock jelly
fresh thyme
To finish:
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
chopped parsley
40g bread crumbs
60g goose fat
To make the duck confit you need to put half of the garlic, bay leaves, pepper corns and salt in the bottom of the casserole dish. Next, place the duck legs on top and rub in the rest of the salt and other spices. Cover and refrigerate for 24hrs. This draws the water out and helps the duck absorb the flavours in the cooking process.
Heat your oven to 100 degrees c. After 24 hours remove the duck and pat dry with kitchen roll. Pour out the excess water but keep all the garlic and other spices. Replace the duck legs, skin up, and cover with the spices that you saved before. Cover the legs in goose fat.
Place into the oven for 2- 2.5 hours until the meat is just falling off the bone. Leave to cool then refrigerate overnight (the duck legs will keeps for a few weeks if they are totally submerged in the fat).
You can now make the cassoulet!
Heat the oven to 100 degrees c and remove the legs and fat from the dish. Carefully scrape off the fat goose fat a put aside into a bowl. Gently joint the legs using a knife at the joint. Heat the casserole dish over a low heat with 25g of goose fat. Sweat off the onions, garlic and carrot for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and bouquet garni/veg stock jelly cube and cook slowly until it is sort of a jammy consistency.
Brown off the sausages, lardons and bacon in a separate pan then add to the casserole dish. Add the stock and bring to the boil then add the duck legs and nestle them down into the rest of the ingredients. Add salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Transfer to the oven and cook uncovered for 1.5 hours, stirring once halfway. Then add your cannellini beans and cook for a further half an hour.
At this point, if you have time, you can leave the cassoulet for a few hours out of the oven or over night in the fridge so that the beans can absorb the flavours. I strongly advise to do this as it really helps to strengthen all the flavours. If you don't have time, keep going! Now is the time to sprinkle over your finely chopped garlic, another 60g goose fat and the breadcrumbs. Return to the oven for a further 1-2 hours until the beans are creamy and the juices have thickened. (If it has been in the fridge get it out and pop into the oven for 20 minutes then carry on with the breadcrumbs etc).
Serve in big bowls, making sure everyone has a bit of everything in the pot and sprinkle with parsley. Partner with green beans as I did or a fresh green salad. Breathe a sigh of relief.
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