Men's Journal

Photograph by David Prince

When you’ve reached your winter limit for comfort foods such as meat loaf and shepherd’s pie, turn to cassoulet, the classic French stew.

By Daniel Duane

Like any man tackling a great carnivorous tradition — think of the feuding between Texas and Carolina barbecue devotees — the would-be cassoulet maker has to first pick sides in an ancient regional argument.

There’s no disputing that a cassoulet is cooked in the traditional cooking vessel, a cassole (below), or that beans, meat, and vegetables are its base. The controversy centers around which meats should join the beans and vegetables.

Three French cities each claim to make the only authentic cassoulet, and according to the great French chef Prosper Montagné, the three styles are the holy trinity of southwestern French cuisine: Castelnaudary’s ham, loin, sausage, fresh bacon, and goose confit is the Father; the Son is Carcassonne’s mutton and partridge version; and the Holy Ghost is the mutton, bacon, and pork belly cassoulet that hails from Toulouse.

While this is all very nice, I wanted to master one right way — not one of three right ways. So I was hugely relieved to discover a fourth, and to my mind a superior, front in the cassoulet battle.

In his indispensable new tome The Complete Robuchon, chef Joël Robuchon throws his weight behind a best-of-all-worlds cassoulet, blending lamb shoulder, lamb neck, pork sausage, pork belly, and duck confit. Because all of these can be found in good gourmet shops, you’ve done half the work by the time you’re finished shopping. After that just follow the straightforward recipe (below) and prepare for the ensuing gastronomic coma.

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Robuchon’s

Cassoulet

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lb dry white beans, tarbais or lingot

• 1 carrot

• 4 onions (2 stuck with 1 clove each, 2 sliced into 1/8-inch-thick rounds)

• 10 garlic cloves, crushed

• 1/2 lb pork rind • 1 bouquet garni

• 1/2 lb garlic sausage

• 3/4 lb saucisses de Toulouse

• salt

• pepper

• 1/2 lb lean pork belly

• 1-1/2 lb duck confit, with fat

• 1-1/2 lb boneless lamb shoulder, chopped into 2-inch chunks

• 1 lb lamb neck, chopped into 2-inch chunks

• 3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced

• 1-1/4 cup dry bread crumbs

• 1 bunch parsley leaves, minced

1. Put beans in a large pot with carrot, 2 onions stuck with cloves, 6 garlic cloves, pork rind, and bouquet garni. Cover with cold water and turn heat on high, lowering before water bubbles. Simmer for one hour. Add garlic sausage and saucisses; simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Salt and pepper to taste.

2. Put pork belly in a large pot, cover with cold water, bring to boil, and cook for 5 minutes. Remove pork to a colander; rinse with cold water; drain.

3. In another pot, melt 4 tbsp fat from confi t. When hot, brown lamb chunks over high heat. Remove to plate. Cook sliced onions in same pot for 3 minutes over low heat; stir. Add tomatoes, 4 garlic cloves, and 10 tbsp bean cooking liquid. Let bubble for 10 minutes.

4. Fish bouquet garni, onions, pork rind, and sausages from the bean-cooking pot. Discard the garni and leave the rest on a plate. Drain beans, saving liquid, then add beans to pot of onions and tomatoes.

5. Preheat oven to 250˚. Slice sausage and saucisses into 1/2-inch rounds. Line a large terrine with the pork rind and fill with alternating layers of meat, saucisses, garlic sausage, and bean-onion-tomato mix. Finish with layer of beans; top with 2 tbsp confit fat, spread evenly over surface. The liquid in the terrine should barely cover the top layer; if it doesn’t, add cooking liquid. Bake for 3 hours.

6. Mix bread crumbs with parsley. When cassoulet has baked for 3 hours, sprinkle with the parsleyed crumbs and put back in oven for 1 hour to brown.

Serves 10.

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Deep and thick enough to distribute heat evenly, an authentic French cassole is a conical ceramic pot glazed inside, similar to this one from Emile Henry ($115; emilehenryusa.com).

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This article originally appeared in the February 2010 issue of Men’s Journal

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