Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with cassoulet, the world’s greatest baked bean recipe, sorry Boston. Anyway, this is a classic French dish, almost a national dish. And here we go.
We’re going to take some white beans and soak them overnight. These are great northern beans, as opposed to just, you know, plain northern beans. These are great. Any white bean will work. Any bean will work for that matter.
Alright, so after the beans are soaked, we’re going to drain those. Put them in a soup pot. Bayleaf. Some garlic, lots of garlic. Some dried rosemary. Some dried thyme. A half an onion with, the secret ingredient, one clove push in. Now, why we’re going to put in the onion like that, so we can find it. You don’t want people chomping to a clove. Ruins the whole meal.
I’m going to add water, a specific amount that is crucial to the recipe. So go to the website, if you’re not already there. Get the ingredient amounts. We’ll going to bring that up to a simmer. There’s no salt, by the way. Bring that up to a simmer and simmer it for 1 hour. And the beans aren’t going to be totally cook, but they’re going to be fairly tender. But just 1 hour is good. I want you to drain them. I want you to reserve the liquid and just set those aside. You can pull out that onion with the clove. And you can pull out the bayleaf. The other stuff can stay there, the garlic and so.
Now in a heavy dutch oven with a lid, we are going to brown, very lightly some bacon. I don’t want it crisp. Alright, I just want it cooked. As soon as it looks like that, I’m going to add my marplot, my carrots, celery, onion. And we’re going to give that a little stir in the hot bacon fat. I’m going to throw in a little salt at that point. And I’m going to sauté that for about 10 minutes.
In the meantime, I’m going to get my other meats together. Bacon is my one kind of pork. I’m also going to use some bistro sausage. Just the French herb sausage, pork sausage. You can use an Italian sausage. When buying French products, always look for accent marks. And also I have duck comfy, which I will link to a recipe on my blog. You can buy that in a lot of stores these days. In fact I got this package at Cosco, believe it or not. So that’s one pound of duck comfy, just cooked, roasted duck leg. Cooked in its own fat.
Alright, while my veggies and bacon are sautéing to the right. I’m going to brown the meat here. The sausage I just cut in half. I just get started about a teaspoon of olive oil. And the duck legs I’m just going to brown in both sides. Very simple.
Alright, my veggies are looking nice, they’re kind of getting translucent. Little bit of caramelization there in the bottom of the pan. I’m going to throw in salt and freshly crack black pepper. Very important. Alright, a little pinch of herb de provence. 1 can of diced tomato. Hey, if you are making this in August, by the way, use a nice big fresh tomato. But the can works great for this. Not a problem. I’m going to cook that for another 10 minutes. And a lot of that liquid from the tomato is going to break, and the bottom is going to deglaze. See how the bottom is nice and clean now. I’m going to scoop that in to my reserve beans, because I want to mix it very well. Because we’re going to make like a sandwich here.
Once the beans and the mirqua are mixed together, I’m going to put half of it back in my dutch oven. At this point my meat is been brown on both sides. I’m going to put the meat on top of the first half of the bean mixture. Pour over the rest of the bean mixture and then we’re going to add the reserve bean liquid back in. But not all of it. You want to save a couple of cups, just in case. I only want you to put liquid up to the top of the beans. Just till it’s barely covered. Bring it up to a simmer. Cover the dutch oven, throw it in the oven. We’re going to go 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
While that’s cooking, we’re going to make our bread crumb mixture, the real secret ingredient to this. Alright, so I’m going to take a half a stick of butter. I’m going to melt it with 4 cloves of crushed garlic. I’m not going to cook it, soon as the butter melts, I’m going to dump in a couple of cups of panko. Those are the Japanese bread crumbs, the sharp pointy ones. And I’m also going to chop one bunch of parsley. Now, when I was asked to chop parsley in the cardinal room, I would do it to this rhythm. And the sauté chef Salvador would go, den-den-den-den-den-den. It’s kind of our thing.
Alright, I’m going to toss the parsley into my buttered bread crumb mixture and garlic mixture. Alright, little salt, little pepper, little olive oil. That is done. And if cassoulet is a beautiful, slightly overweight French super model, the crust of bread crumbs is definitely like the lingerie. As I really stretch these French analogies.
So after half an hour, take out your cassoulet, take of the lid. Here’s what you want to check the liquid amount, looks good. Still should be fairly liquidy. If it’s too dry, put another little of the cooking liquid in. Put half the bread crumbs on top, just half. Alright, we’re going to cook that for 20 minutes.
You’ll see that it kind of cooks, it doesn’t really get any crispy. But it kind of thickens the top of there. You’ll see the liquid is getting a little thicker. But there’s still liquid, see, let me show you here. See that, there’s still some juice. We want that. If not, add a little bit more of cooking liquid. That’s why we want to save that, very important to adjust with. I want to put the other half of the bread crumb mixture over. I’m not going to press it down. I’m just going to sprinkle it over to loose. It’s going to go back in to the oven. I’m going to turn the oven up to 375, and I’m going to cook that about 20-25 minutes or so until looks like that. The top is a little crispy. The bubbles around the edge, this is how you know it’s done and how you know it’s perfect. The bubbles around the edge are slow and sticky bubbles. Alright, if there is no bubbles, that means you don’t have any liquid left, it was too dry. If it’s really loose fast bubbly bubbles, then it’s probably too much liquid. That is just a perfect texture, thick kind of luxurious texture to the beans. And the only instructions here is spoon the beans out first and then put your nice bread crumb crusted meat on top because that is one of the world great, great, great dishes. Basically baked beans with some kind of pork, sausage, duck, etc. There’s a lot of different original versions, but it’s just the quintessential feeling, stick to your ribs, comfort food. Perfect for a cold winter night. I filmed all this at night, the last part of this. So, pardon for the flash photography, still looks okay.
And that’s it, cassoulet. That was a request and I’ve been meaning to make this for ages. Feel free to mix up the sausage you use in there. You don’t have to use bacon, you can use pork shoulder. It’s beans and meat. But the technique is the technique. Anyway, hope you give that a try. Go to the site, all the ingredients are there. And there’s not that many, believe it or not. And, as always, enjoy.
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