Choosing the right birthday dinner for my husband is a lot like buying a present for the guy who has everything. The “problem” if you can call it that, is that he has too many choices. Another “problem” this year, was that I had done a lot of good cooking over the holidays. He wasn’t really craving anything.
We tossed around a bunch of ideas, but nothing seemed to inspire him. Finally, we decided to venture up the road to our local “Temple of Porcine Love”, The Swinery, (3207 California Avenue SW, Seattle, WA www.swinerymeats.com ) and select something from the fresh case. He had stopped by there before Christmas to pick up a few gifts and was still talking about the bacon-wrapped loin chops he saw.
The Swinery seemed to exacerbate his dilemma. The tempting chops were there, looking almost prim and lean next to thick, fatty slabs of fresh pork belly. But they no longer seemed special. I, personally, couldn’t tear my eyes from the charcuterie case – venison terrine, lean and tender pastrami, artisan salamis and gorgeous hocks of ham. “How about cassoulet?” I finally suggested, inspired by the house-made duck confit. “YES!!” So, last Sunday, we invited his parents over and all feasted on a decadent cassoulet, and here are my thoughts on the subject.
Outside of the French countryside, the word “cassoulet” is most often heard in snobby food circles. There is often a certain reverence involved. The music of the foreign term, often accompanied by moans of delight and perhaps an unmistakably cosmopolitan smirk can give the uninitiated the distinct impression that cassoulet is a very fancy, expensive and elaborate dish. But cassoulet is just a pretty term for French baked beans. It can, indeed be sublime and worthy of hushed tones. It can also be very complicated, expensive and elaborate. But to make a really good cassoulet, you must embrace the simplicity and peasant origins of the dish. If you pretend it is anything else, you will be sorely disappointed. I learned that the hard way.
I made cassoulet for the first time about 20 years ago for the family grape harvest. I wanted to blow everyone away with something super complicated and impressive. I used a recipe from the now very trendy, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child as my framework and spend days sourcing and cooking the components. I knew I wouldn’t be able to exactly duplicate her recipe, but I interpreted Julia’s words to mean that the most important elements were diverse and flavorful meats, and a bold, inspired cooking broth. I nailed it. The finished dish was a glorious, bubbling rondo of garlic, smoked pork, stewed venison, duck and sausages, herbs and tender white beans crusted with golden crumbs. (I even made a smaller “cute food free” version without venison or duck for my sister.)
After four days of cooking, and hauling the goods 300 miles from Seattle to Walla Walla, I presented my masterpiece. The crowd, weary from a weekend of picking and pressing grapes, anticlimactically scooped it on to plates and scarfed up my pride and joy while they gathered around a Husky football game on TV. I was horrified. Those mounds of pork and beans on the their plates weren’t just pork and beans. It was cassoulet, dammit! I was in a right proper snit. I myself would dine at the table, thank you very much!
No matter where I dined, I was doomed. There was no getting around it. My classical French delicacy was, even after all that attitude and work, just a mighty tasty pile of beans. It is what it is. I’ve grown up a lot since then. And while I think back on that meal with mostly embarrassment and horror, I still hear the occasional moan of delight in reference to that long ago cassoulet. Football chow doesn’t get much better than that.
Since then, I’ve thrown together the occasional “quickie” cassoulet. I’ll dump some canned white beans into a gratin dish with lots of sautéed garlic, carrots and whatever bits of ham and sausage I have in the fridge. I’ll add a good handful of herbs from the garden and some stock, top it with breadcrumbs and pop it in the oven. It’s just a weekday meal, nothing for company, but a nice quick and relatively healthy winter dinner. I made a great roasted vegetable version once. In some ways a meatless cassoulet sounds like a travesty, but it also was very tasty.
To make a proper birthday meal, I needed to build another “real” cassoulet. To get it right, you need to dedicate at least two and maybe three days to the task. Coincidentally, Fine Cooking magazine featured a multi page spread on making cassoulet in their recent issue. It looks good. But I didn’t follow their recipe. I cobbled together memories of Julia hints, preferences from former restaurant recipes and my own likes and dislikes.
Here’s what I did. I soaked two pounds of Great Northern beans for 24 hours, changing the water twice. I made a stock with half a dozen roasted marrow bones, some beef short rib bones, chicken bones, onion, carrots, fresh thyme, rosemary and bay leaves from the garden, peppercorns and a splash of red wine. That simmered for about eight hours. I browned chunks of pork sirloin in a little fresh bacon fat and then stewed it in a can of chicken stock, with a few roasted vegetables from the stock pan, lots of herbs and two cloves. Then I read a book.
The next day, I cooked the beans with some onion, carrot and more rosemary and thyme until they were tender. While they cooked, I tore the duck confit from the bones, (and somehow managed to not gobble it all up. FYI, The Swinery makes a killer duck confit. Not only is it spiced nicely, but they leave plenty of duck fat in the container for your cooking enjoyment!) I tore a big Hempler’s smoked pork chop into rough chunks and sliced up some Hempler’s garlic sausage. I sautéed onions, carrots and lots of garlic in duck fat, mixed them into the cooked beans and seasoned it all really well. Some recipes call for tomato, but I am anti-tomato in cassoulet. I don’t like the pink color it adds.
Finally, I started layering it up, mixing the beans and the meats in a big, terracotta casserole and drowned it all in a super-flavorful but still light, stock. I had some dried breadcrumbs from Trader Joes, but they were too fine, so I chopped up some sourdough bread into coarse crumbs and topped it with those. For flavor and color, I drizzled the breadcrumbs with a little more duck fat and finally called Jeff over to marvel at my work. It was beautiful.
Beautiful is good, but looks aren’t everything, right? There were some problems. First, I used to work for a wonderful French restaurant that served a very good cassoulet, but I didn’t like how their beans seemed all mashed up. They looked overcooked and over handled. I wanted my beans to be smooth and velvety, but still keep their individual integrity. I originally cooked my beans tender enough that I could squash one between my fingers, but then I messed them up. In order to get all of the ingredients in the dish, I piled the top layer of my cassoulet in a heaping mound. Don’t do this! It looks great, but the top beans are not able to soak up all that great broth. In my heart, I knew that two hours of baking would be barely enough, but we got hungry and couldn’t wait. We had a lovely meal – with a crunchy salad of bitter greens a fabulous baguette and a dessert of lemon tart and coffee, but the texture of the cassoulet was slightly off.
When we were finished, and stuffed to the gills, I rebuilt what remained, making sure that all the beans were swimming in stock, added more crumbs and baked it for another hour. I am not usually a fan of leftovers, but last night, the evening of his actual birthday, we had a dish worthy of celebration. It was amazing. A good cassoulet demands both reverence and humility. And a decade between preparations is not unwise for such a rich and filling treat. We will mete out what remains in between leaner, vegetarian entrees for some much needed nutritional balance.
I wonder what he’ll want next year? Happy Birthday Sweetie!
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