Let's Celebrate!
Mid-February has become a time to celebrate at our house. Valentine's Day, my birthday, and our anniversary of having moved to Bend, this year our second so-called Bendiversary, all fall within a week of each other. Accordingly, we aim to have a small party each February to mark these events. What better to do in this bitter cold season than have a party?
Another February Cassoulet in the Books |
Prepping for Cassoulet
For the cassoulet that I would serve on Saturday night, I started the prep work early Friday morning, right after shoveling the overnight accumulation of snow, a pretty typical chore on a February morning. The day-before prep for cassoulet is pretty limited: soaking the beans overnight and making some delicious pork stock in which to cook the beans.
The first step in making stock is to roast your bones. For pork stock, I use pork neck bones that are both inexpensive and contain delicious meat. I am guessing that if they are readily available here in Central Oregon, you can find them just about anywhere. The trick with roasting bones is time. Put them on a lightly oiled sheet tray in the oven and roast them until they are golden brown on all sides, turning them as necessary. It's not a process that you can or should rush. Cassoulet is only as good as the stock that you cook the beans in.
Having turned the roasting pork neck bones on the sheet tray and put them back in the oven to continue browning and getting sexier and sexier, I was standing at my cutting board, my nose reveling in the porky goodness of the aroma emanating from the direction of the oven. I remarked to Ann, ensconced on the sofa by the fire and nose down in her phone, "How do think these beans are going to feel, being slowly cooked in all that porky goodness?" And she replied, "They're going to be the luckiest beans on earth!"
While the bones were roasting, I did some pre-prep on the vegetables for the mirepoix: onions, carrots, leeks, and celery. While I would dice the mirepoix vegetables on Saturday morning, I wanted the vegetable scraps today for flavoring the stock. To that end, I peeled the onion, trimmed the ends of the carrots, peeled off the tough outer leek leaves, and trimmed the leafy ends of the celery. Be sure to wash the leek leaves well; they can accumulate a lot of dirt, or worse, sand.
After the pork neck bones browned, I put them in a stock pot with all the peels, ends, and scraps of the mirepoix vegetables. Filled with water, the stock pot simmered gently for several hours before I separated the solids from the stock. The stock went into the refrigerator to congeal so that I could remove the fat from the top. After the solids cooled, I picked all the neck meat from the bones to put into the cassoulet on Saturday.
Last thing before going to bed Friday night, I put two pounds of beans in a bowl and covered them with a lot of salted water to soak overnight. I had been wrestling with the choice of beans for a few weeks. Two weeks prior, I put an order in to Rancho Gordo for a big box of beans including my two potential candidates for the cassoulet: Tarbais and Steuben Yellow Eye beans.
I have made many cassoulets in my life, about half with the traditional bean from from the Tarbes area in the far southwest of France up against the Pyrenees, the Tarbais bean; and about half with a traditional American bean called the Steuben Yellow Eye, purported to be the original bean in Boston baked beans. Heretofore, I have always slightly preferred the yellow-eyed beans.
Both beans are loved because while holding their shape, they become ultra creamy inside, exactly what you want for cassoulet, which is nothing if not a super peasant dish of pork and beans. After waffling for days on the choice, I decided to go with the original beans, the Tarbais. I was not disappointed; the resulting cassoulet could not have been better. And I still have Steubens to craft into some other delicacy!
Cassoulet Assembly
Would Anyone Manage to Get Here for Dinner? |
Cassoulet in the Oven Essential to Let it Crust and Re-crust over Several Hours |
Cassoulet Cooling after Seven Hours in Oven |
February Cassoulet Recipe
This recipe is based on two pounds or a kilo of beans, enough to feed 8-10 hungry people. You'll want to attack a cassoulet over two days, the first given to making the stock and soaking the beans, and the second to cooking the cassoulet itself.
Pork Stock
oil to coat a sheet tray
5 pounds pork neck bones5 quarts/liters watertough outer leaves from one large leek, washed wellends and trimmings from 3 medium carrotspeel of one medium onionhearts and leafy ends of one bunch celery
Cassoulet
2 pounds/1 kilogram of Tarbais or other white beans, soaked overnight in salted waterbouquet garni of 1 large sprig each of fresh sage, fresh thyme, and fresh rosemary1/2 cup oil/lard/duck fat for browning meats10 chicken thighs, bone-in and skin-on, 5-6 pounds1 12-ounce tray breakfast sausagesreserved pork neck meat from stock recipe above1 large leek, in small dice3 medium carrots, in small dice2 large stalks celery, in small dice1 medium yellow onion, in small dice1 head of garlic, minced10 bay leavessalt to taste1 gallon/4 liters pork stock from recipe above
The Rest of Our Celebratory Dinner
Fennel Pollen Meatballs Ready to Bake |
Cassoulet Wine Pairings
Three Southern Rhône Reds for Dinner |
No comments:
Post a Comment