This Ina Garten Cassoulet recipe is easy, quick, and made with duck or chicken legs, breadcrumbs, olive oil, fresh thyme leaves, and clarified butter and takes around 4 hours and 30 minutes to cook to perfection. Serve your Cassoulet with roasted duck fat potatoes, sautéed spinach, braised red cabbage, arugula salad, and lemony celery crunch salad for a well-rounded meal.
To make this Cassoulet, Ina starts by preheating the oven and preparing a breadcrumb mixture with duck or chicken skin. She then sears the meats, sautés the veggies, and combines everything in a roasting pan. After baking for about 3 hours, she thickens the liquid and broils the dish with the breadcrumb topping.
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Ina Garten Cassoulet Ingredients
4 duck or chicken legs, cut into two pieces
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 cup + 1/8 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons clarified butter
3 pounds boneless lamb leg or pork shoulder
1 pound Polish or bratwurst sausage
1 1/2 cups large dice Spanish onions
1 1/2 cups large dice carrots
1 1/2 cups large dice celery
4 fresh tomatoes, large dice
1 cup dry white wine
5 cups water or chicken bouillon
1 pound navy beans, soaked overnight
1/4 cup fresh marjoram leaves, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
6 bay leaves
Salt and ground black pepper
How To Make Ina Garten Cassoulet
Preparation: Preheat your oven to 375°F. Trim excess skin from duck or chicken and dry it in the oven for about 15 minutes. Blend the dried skin with breadcrumbs, olive oil, and 1/8 teaspoon thyme leaves. Set aside.
Searing the Meat: Heat clarified butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sear duck, lamb, and sausage until browned. Transfer them to a large roasting pan.
Cooking Veggies: In the same pan, sauté onions, carrots, and celery until browned. Add tomatoes, wine, and water. Bring to a boil.
Combine and Bake: Drain soaked navy beans and add them to the pan with herbs. Pour this mixture over the meats in the roasting pan. Cover and bake for about 3 hours, or until meat is tender.
Final Touch: Remove meat, and drain liquid from beans and veggies. Blend some of the mixture to thicken the liquid. Adjust seasoning. Lay sliced meat on beans, sprinkle breadcrumb mixture, and broil until the top is lightly browned.
What To Serve With Cassoulet
For a well-rounded meal, consider pairing your cassoulet with side dishes like roasted duck fat potatoes, sautéed spinach, or braised red cabbage. Lighter options could include a celery salad or an arugula salad. If you’re looking for something unique, try serving the cassoulet over a cauliflower steak.
How To Store Cassoulet
In The Fridge:
Store the cassoulet in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. Make sure it has cooled down to room temperature before sealing it to maintain the best quality.
You can freeze cassoulet for up to 2-3 months. Place it in a freezer-safe container, leaving some space for expansion. Thaw it in the fridge before reheating.
How To Reheat Cassoulet
To reheat the cassoulet, place it in a preheated oven at 350°F for about 20-25 minutes, or until it’s heated through. You can also reheat it on the stovetop over low heat, stirring occasionally to ensure even warming.
This Ina Garten Cassoulet recipe is easy, quick, and made with duck or chicken legs, breadcrumbs, olive oil, fresh thyme leaves, and clarified butter and takes around 4 hours and 30 minutes to cook to perfection. Serve your Cassoulet with roasted duck fat potatoes, sautéed spinach, braised red cabbage, arugula salad, and lemony celery crunch salad for a well-rounded meal.
Ina Garten Cassoulet Ingredients
How To Make Ina Garten Cassoulet
Preparation: Preheat your oven to 375°F. Trim excess skin from duck or chicken and dry it in the oven for about 15 minutes. Blend the dried skin with breadcrumbs, olive oil, and 1/8 teaspoon thyme leaves. Set aside.
Searing the Meat: Heat clarified butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sear duck, lamb, and sausage until browned. Transfer them to a large roasting pan.
Cooking Veggies: In the same pan, sauté onions, carrots, and celery until browned. Add tomatoes, wine, and water. Bring to a boil.
Combine and Bake: Drain soaked navy beans and add them to the pan with herbs. Pour this mixture over the meats in the roasting pan. Cover and bake for about 3 hours, or until meat is tender.
Final Touch: Remove meat, and drain liquid from beans and veggies. Blend some of the mixture to thicken the liquid. Adjust seasoning. Lay sliced meat on beans, sprinkle breadcrumb mixture, and broil until the top is lightly browned.
You can serve cassoulet on its own with a salad and bread on the side, but it's traditional to accompany it with something colorful . . . usually greens of some sort. If you're looking for a great meal to prepare for the colder weather, try making a cassoulet.
Like some other posters have said, corn flour or regular plain mixed and smoothed with water to a thick consistency prior to adding to the casserole will help thicken it. Remember to stir it in well and leave it a good half an hour or more so that the flour “cooks out” or you will taste it.
Cassoulet does take time to make: there is overnight marinating and soaking, plus a long afternoon of roasting and simmering, and a few days on top of that if you make your own confit.
Cassoulet is traditionally made with dried white beans like flageolet or regional specialty beans like these ones from Tarbais. It might be a stretch to locate these beans in your local market, but great northern beans, navy beans, or cannellini beans are all great alternatives.
Red wines are often considered the best pairing for cassoulet. The hearty and rich flavours of the dish can be balanced with the tannins and fruitiness of the wine, and the acidity can also help to cut through the richness of the dish, providing a well-balanced and satisfying pairing.
There are three types of cassoulet – the Holy Trinity. There's the 'Father' (pork and goose), the 'Son' (mutton and partridge), and the 'Holy Ghost' (sausage, mutton, and duck).
All the ingredients for a good cassoulet can be found in most grocery stores. Purists will argue that you need to find real tarbais beans but I have found white kidney beans work just as well. They will mention that there are 3 versions of true cassoulets (Castelnaudary, Carcassone, and Toulouse).
cassoulet, French dish of white beans baked with meats; it takes its name from its cooking pot, the cassole d'Issel. Originating in Languedoc in southwest France, cassoulet was once simple farmhouse fare, but it has been elaborated into a rich and complex dish.
Cornstarch has twice the thickening power of flour. When a gravy, sauce, soup or stew recipe calls for flour, use half as much cornstarch to thicken. To thicken hot liquids, first mix cornstarch with a little cold water until smooth. Gradually stir into hot liquid until blended.
To reheat the cassoulet, first bring it to room temperature (this will take at least 45 minutes). Set the sausages aside. Cover with the lid of an ovenproof pan or aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes covered. Uncover and bake for 20 minutes more for a total of 50 minutes.
Conran suggests Polish kielbasa as a Toulouse substitute, but the smoky sort I use makes everything taste like a frankfurter, so I'd steer clear – basically, you need something with a very high meat content, and preferably a hefty whack of garlic.
Convention has it that the cassoulet of Castelnaudary is based largely on pork and pork rind, sausage, and (sometimes) goose; the Carcassonne variety contains leg of mutton and (occasionally) partridge; and the cassoulet of Toulouse includes fresh lard, mutton, local Toulouse sausage, and duck or goose.
Add a ladle full of pork stock and put your cassoulet into the oven. Let it cook for 2 hours, pushing the crust down regularly. Sprinkle your breadcrumbs over the top, and let cook for the last hour unmolested. The crust is formed from the protein and collagen-rich stock mixing with the beans and crumbs.
Perhaps there is no dish in Southwest France more iconic, cherished, and controversial than the cassoulet. Cassoulet was originally the food of peasants - a simple assemblage of what ingredients were available: white beans with pork, sausage, duck confit, gizzards, cooked together for a long time.
Seafood cassoulet introduces a lighter variant. When choosing wine, consider the dish's main ingredients: robust meats pair well with full-bodied reds like Syrah or Malbec. If the cassoulet includes seafood, opt for a fuller white wine like Chardonnay.
In Languedoc, you'd typically find a garlicky pork sausage flavored with a bit of red wine. Back here, I like to use whatever mild garlic sausage I can find, though if you want to play Cassoulet Choose Your Own Adventure, you can go with any flavor sausage in the shop.
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