Daring to do it: Cassoulet

Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

Living in the northeastern part of the U.S., it is expected that winters will be cold. During these cold months, I love nothing more than a nice, hot meal to warm me up inside and out. This challenge looked to be perfect for this time of year (at least in my part of the world, that is!). But I was a bit hesitant. Cassoulet is traditionally a meat dish. Like, four different kinds of meat. Would a vegetarian version really stand up to the tradition? (I was also kind of wondering if the veggie version would be much different than the bean based vegetable soups and stews I generally make.) And the confit... Cooking/preserving in fat. Ummm.... really? While I am sure that the carnivorous/omnivorous Daring Cooks would disagree with me, even the photos of both processes looked less than appealing to me... It took me a couple of weeks to dive into this challenge....
Once I got myself into the proper mindset (you know, "Well, I don't want to skip a month, and it can't hurt to know a new bean stew,") I got to work. Most of the ingredients for this cassoulet are things I keep on hand. White beans? Check. Carrots? Yup. Celery? Usually. Garlic? Always! Leaks were the one ingredient I had to make an effort to (remember to) have on hand. Other than that, there were some herbs that I don't keep around, as wouldn't use them often enough, but I figured that improvising the spice mix would be just fine. (You can check out the posted recipes, meat and vegetarian, here.)
I started by soaking a full pound of Great Northern Beans over night, then simmering them until they were tender. (Again, nothing new to me, but a process which I enjoy more than anyone really should...!) While the beans were simmering I took the "down time" opportunity to make my confit. While the garlic confit recipe given by our hosts looked really good, I wasn't sure I could handle pealing that quantity of garlic! (65 cloves!) So I looked around on-line, trying to see if there was another recipe which might be a bit more manageable. I decided to sort of combine recipes I found, and covered garlic cloves and some sliced onions in lightly seasoned olive oil. The hardest part of this process was making sure the garlic didn't burn. But the smell of roasted garlic and onion in the house was amazing! And the finished confit looked so great, I couldn't wait to try it!

After that, the vegetarian cassoulet recipe felt almost like a cop out, at least compared with the time-intensive steps required for the traditional recipe!! Sautee the vegetables, add the beans, add water and let everything simmer together with the spices and seasonings.

The finishing touch for the cassoulet was toasted garlicky bread crumbs on top. I used some home-made challah for my crumbs, and margarine instead of olive oil to toast. (I used up all of my olive oil in the confit. Had I thought about it, though, that garlicky, oniony oil would have been great on the crumbs!!) Instead of sprinkling the crumbs over each serving as suggested, though, I decided to pour the finished cassoulet into a casserole dish, cover it with the bread crumbs and bake/broil the whole thing. I love the crunchy crumb toppings on dishes, I thought this would be good... Except for the part where I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have, and the top layer of crumbs burned. Like, black burned... Ick... Luckily the crumb layer was thick enough that I could carefully spoon off the charred bits and salvage the flavor and consistency I have been hoping for.

I served the cassoulet with the garlic and onion confit spooned on top. It was really great! The cassoulet itself was fairly mild in flavor, which was fine with me. The confit added a great burst of flavor and richness, which I loved, and the bread crumbs - those which hadn't turned to cinders, added amazing taste and texture. I was so glad that I didn't sit this one out! This might have to become a regular dish, as we all loved it for lunch, and the (plentiful) leftovers were enjoyed by not only us, but a friend who travels to France frequently, and was very interested in trying this vegetarian cassoulet. (She also keeps Kosher, so cassoulet was not something she has the opportunity to eat too frequently when visiting France...)

Thank you so much to Jenni and Lisa for introducing me to both confit and cassoulet! I can honestly say this is not something I would have ever sought out had you not brought it to my attention. I am really glad I tried it, and I can't wait to make it again!!

If you would like to see the amazing creations, both meat and vegetarian, of my fellow Daring Cooks, take a look here and get ready to drool!