Recipe – Cassoulet of the Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet de Castelnaudary

Following my pizza-machine-cassoulet post earlier today, I have received several enquiries about cassoulet recipes. So here is my translation of a recipe from the festival organisers, an association called Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet de Castelnaudary, and it combines authenticity with practicality. Unlike some recipes, it does not stipulate using a wood burning stove fuelled by branches of gorse from the Montagne Noire, or a cassole from Issel (they are no longer made there), and although it recommends using water from Castelnaudary, it does not go as far as some traditionalists who say the water must be drawn from a spring called the Co d'en Sens.

This recipe, and a much longer discussion of casssoulet past and present, appears in my book Menu from the Midi.

Ingredients for 4 people: 400 g of white lingot beans; 2 legs of duck or goose confit, cut in two; 320 g of pure pork sausage cut into 4 pieces; 200 g of pork (belly, shank or shoulder) cut into 4 pieces; 250 g of pork rind; a little salted lard; a poultry carcase or some pork bones; carrots and onions, a few cloves of garlic.

Preparation – the night before
1) Soak the beans in cold water [if using Le Haricot de Castelnaudary, they only require up to 4 hours and can therefore be soaked on the day of cooking].
 
Preparation – cooking the ingredients
2) Drain the beans and put them in a saucepan with 3 litres of cold water and bring to the boil for 5 minutes. Drain the beans and set them to one side.
3) Prepare the stock using 3 litres of cold water (soft water from Castelnaudary if possible), the pork rind cut into wide strips, a poultry carcase if you have one or a few pork bones and, according to your taste, some onions and carrots. Add a generous amount of salt and pepper. Cook the stock for 1 hour, then filter it and retrieve the pork rind.
4) Put the beans into the filtered stock and boil them until they are soft but still whole. This will take around 1 hour. While they are cooking, prepare the meat.
5) In a large frying pan, gently melt the fat off the duck or goose confit and then take out the meat. In the remaining fat, brown the sausages and put them to one side. Then cook the pieces of pork in the same pan until they are golden brown and put them aside with the other meat.
6) Drain the beans and keep the hot stock. Crush a few garlic cloves and mix with double their weight of salted lard and stir this mixture into the beans.

​Preparation – assembling the cassoulet
7) Use the type of flared earthenware bowl that is called a cassole and gives us the name cassoulet, or any other oven-proof earthenware dish.
8) Line the bottom of the dish with the pieces of rind and add about a third of the beans. Then add the meat [excluding the pieces of sausage] and cover with the rest of the beans.
9) Put the pieces of sausage on top and push them into the beans but leave their top surfaces visible.
10) Pour in the hot stock until it just covers the beans. Sprinkle with freshly-ground black pepper and add a tablespoon of the duck fat in which the meat was cooked.
 
Cooking
11) Put the cassole into a hot oven at 150-160oC for 2 to 3 hours. During cooking, a golden-brown crust will form on the surface, and this must be pushed down into the mixture several times (the old folk say seven times). When the top of the beans begins to dry out, add a few spoonfuls of stock.
12) If you prepared the cassoulet the night before, it must be reheated in the oven at 150oC for 1½ hours before being served. Don’t forget to add a little stock or a few spoonfuls of water during cooking.
 
Very important advice!
The cassoulet should be presented bubbling in its dish, and for the best results, served carefully without stirring, and don’t hesitate to take a second helping. This is a dish that will transport you to the paradise of popular gastronomy!

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