Cassoulet - Day I
A trip to the market this morning to get the rest of what I need for a cassoulet - assembled on the left. At the back of the picture you can see the haricots tarbais, under the herbs is a package of duck confit. Beside the beans is a bowl of goose fat, much more than I will need. Some cassoulet recipes call for mutton as well as pork, but this one uses only pork belly and pork rind. At the market they sell pork belly with the rind attached, which at least guarantees that they are of the same freshness. It takes a bit of time to remove the rind without cutting into the skin or taking lots of pork belly with it. The only task for today is to put the beans to soak under cold water. Not too difficult. Working with pork belly reminds me of that terrific Chinese braised aromoatic pork belly recipe. It is very easy to make and is something that you don't usually find on the American Chinese menu. Not to everyone's taste because of the fat in the pork belly.Tarbais beans are different from Great Northern beans - larger, flatter and almost rectangular in shape.
posted by William @ 2:12 PM
4 Comments:
Cassoulet is gross!
I absolutely love the "Les Halles Cookbook"! Good for you. I haven't made the cassoulet yet, but it's on the list for this year!
Hi, so you say that the Chinese braised pork belly recipe is easy. Can you give any hints on how to make it? I've got a 2.2 pound pork belly in my freezer awaiting a recipe. Thanks!
Hi. Thanks for your comment. I am planning to cook pork belly soon and will write up an entry on it. Meanwhile I could suggest two books that have recipes for Chinese pork belly. One is The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (which I have a tried and found good). Another I plan to try is in Susanna Foo's Fresh Inspiration. The River Cottage method is to cut the meat (1.5kg) into 2" squares and blanch in boiling water. Rinse, then braise the meat, under a very low heat, in a mixture of soy sauce (100ml), Chinese rice wine (75ml), rice wine vinegar(25ml), demerara sugar (2 tablespoons), 3 star anise, a piece of sliced root ginger, 5 scallions sliced and some chilli flakes. After two hours take out the meat, increase the heat and reduce the sauce somewhat. Put the meat back, add 5 more thinly sliced scallions and serve over rice. I would suggest using the low salt soy sauce as the sauce can otherwise get very salty when it is reduced. The key is very slow cooking in a covered pan or dutch oven, otherwise the fat doesn't properly render from the pork and it is greasy and unattractive. In China they tend to like it more fatty than is the Western taste, but properly and slowly cooked this has a fantastic flavor. The chief problem - for most people - is finding the pork belly. Good luck!
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