Cassoulet. So much deliciousness.
Today was an at-home day and darling Paul had an idea to make cassoulet after reading an extensive blog post on it and knowing that I love beans. The night before he had put some navy beans to soak. In the morning we went to the supermarket to pick up some of the missing ingredients we would need (salt pork, duck fat) and back home Paul went to work.
I love the kind of joint cooking we do when Paul cooks and I basically laze around eating snacks and drinking and supervising him while he cooks. In my defence, I did prepare the mise en place and periodically ask “is it time to check the cassoulet?” so I did contribute somewhat to the finished product.
Cassoulet is a fussy dish as you do need to babysit it a little. By “you”, ideally you have my set up where the “you” part has been outsourced. However, even if you have to baby it yourself, it is totally worth it. I was bound to love it because I do love beans but even without this bias it is a great dish. Paul reckons it is the best dish he has made all year. I agree!
We paired this with a wine from Carcassonne. Paul said this was totally appropriate as this is the region where cassoulet is also from. It was a great meal.
We won’t bother to reproduce the recipe we used because the writeup by Serious Eats culinary director J. Kenji López-Alt is far more detailed and delightful than we could hope to achieve ourselves.
In a few days we’ll be making Beijing-style duck. The carcass and gizzards will surely be going toward a duck stock that we’ll use for cassoulet round two.