Bendiversary 2026: Cassoulet Encore

Once again, seemingly more quickly this year, February is upon us in a flash. We have crammed our February celebrations (Valentine's Day, my birthday, and the anniversary of our moving to Bend) into a single celebration that we call our Bendiversary. It is now tradition that I make a cassoulet for us and our friends. We invited Rob and Dyce and Michelle and Andreas; sadly, Rob and Dyce were feeling poorly and had to back out.

Celebrating with Michelle and Andreas

While I am in the kitchen cooking, Ann handles the table in the dining room and always does such a nice job. 

For our meal, cassoulet is a given, leaving only an appetizer to devise, along with the de rigueur salad, the necessary light and acidic counterpoint to the heavy and decadent cassoulet. For once, I thought not about what guests would like, but what I would like for an appetizer to celebrate my birthday.

If I had some foie gras, I would have made torchons. If I had rabbit liver, I would have made a terrine. Sadly, while those items were always available to me in the restaurant trade, I cannot get them here. Never fear, I started my charcuterie career with chicken livers and they would suffice beautifully for this meal.

I chose to make a mousse, a dead simple affair involving cooking minced shallots and fresh thyme in butter, then adding chicken livers and cooking until just barely done. Lacking cognac (it's a pain in the rear to visit the liquor store), I drizzled in a bit of high rye bourbon and let that cook off. The livers went into the food processor with a bit of white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg. After spinning them up, I added just enough heavy cream to smooth out the paste. I transferred the mousse to a bowl while still warm, letting it set up in the cooler overnight.

Croustades, Mousse de Foie de Volaille, Cornichons

Brut Sparkling Nerello Mascalese
Excellent with Liver Mousse

When I made cassoulet at the restaurant, several times a month in the winter, I had access to all the classic ingredients: large white Tarbais beans, house-made duck confit, meaty and garlicky saucisse de Toulouse, and plenty of poitrine de porc (pork belly). After we butchered one of our hogs, cassoulet was sure to be on the menu. Now in retirement, I do not have access to hogs, ducks to confit, and many other things. Happily, I can get outstanding American-grown cassoulet beans from neighboring California. Everything else, I have to wing, substituting things that I do have.

Traditionally, cooks make cassoulet in an earthenware pot called a cassole, from which the dish has taken its name. At the restaurant, we made it in a huge rondeau, a flat round braising pan that would take an entire shelf in our commercial oven. At home, I have a decent-sized enameled cast iron cocotte that serves six. I also have a smaller rondeau that serves eight. When I have made cassoulet in the past, I have made batches from a kilogram of beans, enough to serve a dozen or more. Heretofore, I split the cassoulet between the cocotte and the rondeau with excellent results, if slightly different cook times.

In the last year or so, I purchased a deep roaster that could easily hold the entire batch, simplifying my life. Never having used this pan for cassoulet before left the cooking and cook time a bit of a crapshoot, but it worked wonderfully.

I cannot believe how many people put bread crumbs on cassoulet. Scream with me: FAUX PAS! One of the glories of a cassoulet is its crust. This crust develops over time. Once it forms, I punch it back into the liquid and let it reform, again and again, up to seven times. This is cassoulet. The following series of photos shows the progression.

Cassoulet Assembled, Ready for Oven

Cassoulet, After 4th Punchdown

Cassoulet Ready to Serve, After 7th Punchdown

Cassoulet is a load in the stomach, meaning that it really needs no side dishes. I always serve it with a salad with a really classic acidic mustardy shallot vinaigrette. The acid helps refresh the palate from the rich flavors of the long-cooked beans and meats. This dressing I made with mustard, tarragon vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and minced shallots. I make the tarragon vinegar by stuffing a bottle of rice vinegar with fresh tarragon and leaving it in the dark pantry for weeks to flavor. The salad changes with my mood and what is available. This is is baby spinach, julienne of apple, julienne of fennel, and toasted slivered almonds.

Spinach, Apple, Fennel, Almonds, Shallot-Tarragon Vinaigrette

So Good!

I am already looking forward to my next cassoulet, which I am going to make in less than a week for a wine event we are having at the house.