Great resources Robert. I tend to follow Paula Wolfert’s recipe. $10 used on amazon, get the book! (there’s also a sous vide confit recipe in that book which I’ve used successfully)
Also, Bryan, you mentioned above soaking the beans in a brine. You might try soaking them in plain water and discarding that water. One taste of the soak water and you’ll see why.
That’s because Robert linked the wrong thread Bryan!
Here’s page 3 of a 4 page thread.
http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=796736#p796736
Enjoy!
Thanks Jorge. I remembered this and was wondering where the rest of the cassoulet discussion went with Robert’s link.
Thanks Jorge. I don’t believe I found that version of “Cassoulet Time” the first time I searched. That was definitely a good discussion on recipes. And it was reassuring to see pictures that looked like my dish.
Ok, add Nebbilo to the wine list. That makes at least 4 bottles of wine for the next time. And I have about 10 more recipes to read and ponder and incorporate in to my next attempt. Thank god this is actually a lot of fun and not a chore.
Making cassoulet this weekend; planning to confit pork belly and duck legs together (never tried that before), and using Rancho Gordo “Cassoulet beans” (Californian grown Tarbais) which I’ve also never tried before. I was planning to put half a trotter in it too, but was informed that I’m not allowed to do that. Don’t know if I’ll stumble upon an appropriate sausage to add in.
As for wine, I think I’ll try 2010 Labranche-Laffont Madiran VV. Last time I went with Tours VdP Vaucluse, and it worked just fine but wasn’t a match made in heaven or anything.
I think you’re headed 200% in the right direction. I’ve co-confited pork and duck together before. You’ll get a blend of flavors which should be nice but I also like having them distinct as I like the five spice type flavors in my duck but not in my pork belly. If doing sous vide, you can just do separate pouches for each, same bath.
Glad to hear I’m not the only person to try the co-confit approach! I don’t have duck fat (apart from what will render from the legs), which is what prompted me to try this. The place where I got duck legs had duck fat, but for $20 a pound… a pint of fat would have cost more than the legs… couldn’t do it.
I’ve read that Labranche-Laffont is made to drink younger than traditional Madiran, but I’m wondering if it would benefit from a long decant - does anyone know?
You can re-use the duck fat multiple times, especially if you’re not taking it up to high heat, you’re not breaking it down. kept in the freezer, I’ve re-used batches a dozen times over a couple years.
The sous vide method means you need less fat too…
When you put it that way, maybe I should just get some duck fat. I ended up using a combination of fats rendered from lardo, prosciutto trimmings, and duck skin, plus some chicken fat from the surface of chilled stock. Salted and weighted pork belly and duck legs for 24 hours. Confited the pork belly first (3 hours in an oven set to 250 or so, adjusting to keep the fat at 190 F, in an uncovered stoneware baking dish), which rendered additional fat, let cool, then removed the belly and confited the duck legs for 2 hours in that same fat, then confited a thick half-pound slice of prosciutto for an hour (kind of just winging it here). Cooked beans in chicken stock with onions and tied rolls of pork skin. Next day layered everything (adding garlic cloves and a little salt), got it warm, topped with seared garlic lamb sausages and bread crumbs mixed with parsley and some confit fat, and baked at 400 until crusty. It was good!
The '10 Labranche-Laffont Madiran VV was super primary even after a 12 hour double decent. It worked fine with the cassoulet, but wasn’t very interesting. Another 10 hours later, it was drinking better. It did have good acidity (in addition to the expected tannins), which worked well with the richness of the dish. I like the Beaujolais and Loire Cab Franc ideas, I might try one of those next time.
Sounds great! I sometimes forego the bread crumbs and just char up the scum that rises, then break it and char it up again.
I paired the leftovers with 2007 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses, and it worked really well, especially with the duck.
Thanks for all the tips, Paul! I should really get set up for sous vide sometime; that must help with storing the confit, too.
yes it does, you just shock the bag in ice water and straight to the freezer. Keeps indefinitely.
Somebody beat me to it. Rayas’ Fonsalette CdR. Ten years old, at least.
I could not resist another kick at making a Cassoulet this winter and I used the above as my recipe of choice this time. My porn star pseudonym for this dish is Porky Cassoulet.
The recipe called for browned up pork belly and onions in a blender which was added to the Cassoulet assembly of layering beans, sausage, duck etc. I found the product from the blender added a mushy porky consistency to the dish and imparted too much of a lingering pork butcher shop aroma and taste. I’ll be trying another recipe next time.
For the wine:
2008 Côtes du Rhône Château de Fonsalette Reserve - decanted two hours. Great wine. Such a light and energetic wine with lots of pepper and great focus. Very nice match. Thanks for the recommendation. I wish more S Rhone producers would try and copy Rayas.
2007 Chateau de Pibarnon Bandol - Still young, but it was all fruit and no complexity. This wine just pales in comparison to a Tempier of any kind. Lacked structure and I would never pick this as a Bandol Mouvedre blind. My Tempier are still to young and I wanted to save them for another time. I hope my other Pibarnon show better when the time comes, but they are not in the same league as Tempier IMO.
2009 L’Oustal Blanc (Isabel et Claude Fonquerle) Minervois Giocoso - I wasn’t sure I was going to keep this wine which I bought on the weekend when looking for something else from Southern France, because when I read about it when I got home I learned that Philippe Cambie was a consultant for L’Oustal Blanc. But apparently his last year was 2007 so I figured this was worth a look at $16. Thankfully this was not an over the top GSM and oak was minimal. A good wine. Better than the Pibarnon, but it didn’t go as well with the Cassoulet compared to the Fonsalette Reserve.
To me this dish is a challenge but worth the effort and the experimentation. Sometimes its very easy to nail a dish and wine and I love those moments. But it’s also nice when something is more of a challenge and I think the rewards are going to be greater.
Next time I’m thinking of trying a Provence Rose, a white and another red.
This thread was useful last night. I made a chicken/pork/Smoking Goose fennel sausage cassoulet, and originally was planning on Burgundy, but after reading this thread switched to a 2006 Boislauzon - CdP. The pairing worked very well, imo. Thank you to the OP and all who contributed to this thread! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
You magnificent bastards. A 7 year necrothread resurrected, and now I am buying ingredients to make Cassoulet. This thread cost me a bit of money and 16 hours of time.
Well this would be more useful to all of us if you would reveal what the goose was smoking.
Interesting, that CdP was a good pairing given its lack of tannin and structure. I prefer to drink most wines after the tannins are resolved (or, at least somewhat resolved), but I like structure as a counterpoint to the richness of cassoulet and prefer to drink Bandol, Cahors, Irouleguy, Tannat with it.
Paul, I merely wanted to mention Smoking Goose b/c I got their sausage here, during Newbiepalooza. Yes, I know you were joking.
Mark,
Surprisingly, the '06 CdP still had some moderately coarse tannin sticking around. The wines you mention may very well have worked better, but – aside from a couple bottles of Tablas Creek’s Tannat – I have none available to me at my home. Plus, I figured that '06 CdP needed to be consumed, as I feared it may already be on its downslope; as it was, that was not my perception, despite not entirely digging it on its own — my palate has simply shifted somewhat since I bought it many years ago.