Got a 30% off code from Blackboard Eats today for D’Artganan.com. Along with some Tasso ham & black truffle butter, ordered the Cassoulet kit (it is being offered with an engraved clay cooking/serving vessel). The kit list has the following ingredients:
6 preserved duck legs (Duck Confit)
2 packages of Duck & Armagnac Sausage (4 links, 8.5 oz)
1 Garlic Sausage (1 lb.)
1 Ventrèche (12 oz.)
3 packages of Haricot Tarbais Beans (3 lbs.)
1 container of Duck and Veal Demi-Glace
1 container of Duck Fat
Now, I’ve always been an eater, not a maker (although I think I helped out Michel Abood with one some years ago). Any tips, techniques, etc.?
According to the D’Artagnan website, in Gascogne cassoulet NEVER has lamb or goose or breadcrumbs. As far as pork………ummm, garlic sausage & ventreche???
I just made this New Year’s Day. I’ve made cassoulet from scratch before, but the kit is handy. (I speeded things up a bit by cooking the beans in the pressure cooker.)
It’s a tasty offering and I recommend. Now this is my second or third time using their kit and it seems to me that they may have up-sized it - my largest pot is my 7-quart Creuset, and I ended up using only half of the beans and three of the duck legs - which will make a nice little meal on their own at some point.
Off the top of my head, onion & garlic, salt & pepper - but that’s it. I don’t think there were carrots or celery in there. Didn’t need oil. Probably a bouquet garni. Google the recipe, because it is posted on-line - it’ll say anything else, but the kit has almost everything.
I like to trim all the extra skin off the duck legs, make cracklings with them, and mix the cracklings with panko toasted in duck fat to top the cassoulet.
Thanks to Jorge, I am =so= there. Got the coupon and ordered the kit.
Paul, I have made this at least once (maybe twice) and yes, use a little imagination and you can do it various different ways. What I did one time was to buy some extra chicken garlic sausages so that I could make a “side pot” for a guest who couldn’t eat pork. She was really really grateful, she thought it was delicious and she would not have been able to eat it otherwise.
But you also have to factor in the fact that with something this greasy and delicious, people tend to eat a LOT. So it may not go quite as far as you expect. Especially if you have, say, a silky old Chateauneuf to wash it down. I know that’s not the 100% authentic match but it sure tastes good.
10 cloves garlic, peeled
2 medium onions, skinned and cut in half
5 whole cloves
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 bouquet garni, made of 5 parsley sprigs, 3 celery leaves, 1 thyme sprig, 1 bay leaf and 10 peppercorns, wrapped in cheesecloth and tied
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Salt
Pepper
The fact that the cooking vessel comes included is the icing on the cake. Really can’t beat the cost after the coupon.
They ESTIMATED $30 for me – when I got the information in the shopping cart, it was more like $9, and that’s also what they charged my brother in law down in Maryland. So if you got a $30 estimate, don’t necessarily believe it!