Recipe: Cassoulet edit

Yield: 10 servings

edit Ingredients

1	pound dried white beans
½	teaspoon rosemary
1	teaspoon fresh ground pepper
3	cups chicken broth
2	cups soft bread crumbs
2	teaspoons salt
½	cup diced salt pork
4	cups lamb cubes
2	cups chopped onions
1 ½	cups diced carrots
2	cups diced tomatoes
3	clove cloves garlic, pressed
2	tablespoons chopped parsley
2	legs duck confit

edit Preparation

Step 1	Rinse beans. Add water to cover. Bring to boil. Boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand 1 hour. Add salt, bring to boil again and simmer 1-1/2 hours until tender.
Step 2	Fry salt pork over low heat until golden. Add lamb cubes and brown. Add onions, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, parsley, rosemary, pepper, curry powder and chicken broth. Add duck confit. Bring to a boil, then simmer 30 minutes.
Step 3	Drain beans. Place in oven proof pot or deep pan. Pour meat and broth over beans. Bake covered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then uncovered for 1 hour. Top with crumbs and bake until crumbs are golden. Serves 10.

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edit About Cassoulet

Classic French bean stew.

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Edited by: Alisa Escanlar, Sheri, Barnaby Dorfman

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Wikipedia

Cassoulet (from Occitan ''caçolet'' ) is a rich, slow-cooked bean stew or casserole originating in the south of France, containing meat (typically pork sausages, pork, goose, duck and sometimes mutton), pork skin (''couennes'') and white haricot beans. The dish is named after the'' cassole'', the distinctive deep round earthenware pot with slanting sides in which cassoulet is traditionally cooked. Numerous regional variations exist, the best-known being the cassoulet from Castelnaudary, the self-proclaimed "Capital of Cassoulet", Toulouse, and Carcassonne. All are made with white beans (''haricots blancs'' or ''lingots''), which have replaced the medieval broad bean ''Vica fava'', and duck or goose confit, meat and sausages. In the cassoulet of Toulouse, the meats are pork and mutton, the latter frequently a cold roast shoulder. The Carcassonne version is similar but doubles the portion of mutton and sometimes replaces the duck with partridge. The cassoulet of Castelnaudary uses a duck confit instead of mutton and serves it in a special dish (the "cassole") Cassoulet is also sold in France as a commercial product in cans and can be found in supermarkets and grocery stores across the country. These cassoulets vary in price and quality. The cheapest ones contain only beans, tomato sauce, sausages, and bacon — duck and goose are expensive and thus are absent from such preparations. More expensive versions are likely to be cooked with goose fat and to include Toulouse sausages, lamb, goose, or duck ''confit''. Haute cuisine versions require mixing pre-cooked roasted meats with beans that have been simmered separately with aromatic vegetables, but this runs counter to cassoulet's peasant origins. In the process of preparing the dish it is traditional to deglaze the pot from the previous cassoulet in order to give a base for the next one. This has led to stories of a single original cassoulet being extended for years or even decades. Many culinary traditions have similar techniques for slow cooking beans in a covered vessel. Examples include Feijoada, Fabada Asturiana, and baked beans. The Hungarian-Jewish solet and Eastern European cholent are similar bean dishes, and are also frequently cooked in combination with smoked poultry, especially goose leg, but a definitive relationship has not been established.