Veronica's Test Kitchen

A Housewarming Stew : The Cassoulet

Peabody is hosting a virtual housewarming party on December 8 to celebrate her move into her charming new abode. With the weather turning frostier by the day, what is more ideal than to finally attempt to make a cassoulet – that famed slow-cooked bean stew from the southwest of France.

The “Hungry” hubby had also been complaining about the lack of “real” food in the house since I had been in a baking frenzy lately and he noticed how most books arriving in the house were more of the sweet rather than savory nature.

            “How about some Osso buco ?” He would hint every weekend for a month now.

Finally taking a pity on my man, I declared this past week:

            “I shall make cassoulet.” (Not quite Osso buco , but still...)

The next question was: “Which recipe to use?”

After flip-flopping endlessly between Paula Wolfert and Anthony Bourdain, I decided to go with Bourdain’s version from his Les Halles Cookbook because it was simpler – besides I look forward to hearing his voice in my head complete with that acerbic tongue of his and tough-love type of instruction encouraging the home cook that, yes, she can turn out mean bistro fare worthy of three stars.

A typical cassoulet is made with tarbais beans, duck confit, pork sausages, pork belly and uh --- some pork rind. I knew immediately that I would be buying my pork sausages (instead of making my own) and substituting lamb stew meat for the pork belly (otherwise, I would be eating the pork belly by myself). I called my local butcher and I was in luck because they just skinned a pig – so that took care of the pork rind part.

            As for the duck confit, I made a big batch of them three weeks ago - and I mean big – like eight legs.  I was not exactly pleased with the result texture-wise so I thought it would benefit from more cooking within the cassoulet.

            This was also my first time cooking with tarbais beans. And let me tell you that I have never seen or tasted a bean quite like it.

            The recipe said to use an earthenware pot which I didn’t have, but after I consulted with Helen who consulted with her brother in Toulouse (a cassoulet expert, I hear), she said it was okay to use a dutch oven.

Cassoulet

Adapted from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook

• 1100g Tarbais beans or white beans
• *1.5 lbs lamb stew meat
• 1 onion, cut into 4 pieces
• 1 lb/450g pork rind
• 1 bouquet garni (1 sprig parsley,thyme,bay leaf)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4cup/ 56 g duck fat
• * 2 tbs. duck fat
• 1.5 lbs pork sausage (orig. recipe – 6 sausage links)
• 3 onions, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
• 5 confit duck legs (orig. recipe – 4 duck legs)
• * 1 ham hock

Day one:

Place the beans in a large bowl and cover with cold water so that there are at least two or three inches of water above the top of the beans. Soak overnight. That was hard, right?

Day two:

* Salt and pepper the lamb stew meat and set aside.

Drain and rinse the beans and place in a large pot. Add the quartered onion, ¼ lb/112 g of the pork rind, the ham hock and the bouquet garni. Cover with water, add salt and pepper to taste, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the beans are tender, about an hour. Let cool for 20 minutes, and then discard the onion, the bouquet garni, and the ham hock. Strain the beans and the rind and set aside, reserving the cooking liquid separately.

* While the beans are simmering, preheat the oven to 400 °F and heat the duck confit through for 20 minutes.

* In the sauté pan, heat 2 tbs of the duck fat and brown the lamb stew meat and then set aside.

In the sauté pan, heat all but 1 tablespoon/14 g of the duck fat over medium-high heat until it shimmers and becomes transparent. Carefully add the sausages and brown on all sides. Remove and set aside, draining on paper towels. In the same pan, over medium-high heat brown the sliced onions, the garlic, and the reserved squares of pork rind from the beans (not the unused pork rind; you’ll need that for later.) Once browned, remove from the heat and transfer to the blender. Add 1 tablespoon/14g of the remaining duck fat and puree until smooth. Set Aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Place the uncooked pork rind in the bottom of a deep ovenproof earthenware dish/Dutch oven. You’re looking to line the inside, almost like a pie crust. Arrange all your ingredients in alternating layers, beginning with a layer of beans, then sausages, then more beans, lamb stew meat, beans, duck confit, and finally more beans, adding a dab of the onion and pork rind puree between each layer. Add enough of the bean cooking liquid to just cover the beans, reserving 1 cup/225 ml in the refrigerator for later use. Cook the cassoulet in the oven for 1 hour, then reduce the heat to 250°F/130°C and cook for another hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Refrigerate overnight.

Day three:

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°F again. Cook the cassoulet for an hour. Break the crust on the top with the spoon and add ¼ cup/56ml of the reserved cooking liquid. Reduce the heat to 250°F/130°C and continue cooking for another 15 minutes, or until screamingly hot through and through. Then serve.

* NOT IN ORIGINAL RECIPE

Cooking Notes:

            I am not big on beans (the “Hungry” hubby loves them) but the tarbais beans surely peaked my interest - looking so big yet cute in their 1lb bags. I ordered them earlier this year fully intending on making the stew but the weather got hot so quickly that making a cassoulet in 70 °F weather did not seem so appetizing so I waited patiently for the seasons to pass.

            So at the first sign of fall weather, I quickly made my duck confit with a 50-50 chance of using some of them in the cassoulet. I did not follow Bourdain’s recipe for confit in the book which was why I did not include it here. I made my confit from the The Balthazar Cookbook and shall post that recipe soon, I just need to tweak some seasonings and cooking times and I think I would have accomplished my quest for duck confit. If you live in the Richmond,Va area the Belmont Butchery makes their own duck confit – though not as good as mine ;). It is also available at D'Artagnan.

            I was a little disappointed with my sausage choices at the local butchery. They did not make garlic pork sausage that week and I was left with some skinny little ones that looked so out of place in such a weighty stew. However, since I substituted pork belly with chunky lamb meat and had five pieces of Duck legs to throw into it, I think those sausages were not going to be missed. The pork rind I got wasn’t cut all that well either. I did not have enough to line the bottom of the pot and I think I might have added too much of the bean liquid afterwards.

            It is also a good idea to take out the duck confit from the refrigerator at least two hours before you need it so it would be easy to remove the legs from the fat - that glorious duck fat – without damaging the legs.

            Having almost non-existent experience in handling beans, I did not know that these babies could expand to almost twice their size – talk about beans on steroids!

            I added a piece of ham hock to the bean cooking liquid. The main flavoring of the beans happen during this part because the other ingredients you add later on like the duck confit already have their own seasonings so make sure you add enough salt and pepper to the liquid which you would be using later when you assemble the dish.

            My one mistake was making this stew so late in the day after I’ve already run around town doing errands. At first I was so overwhelmed about where to start but after I got into it - and had some wine - I began to enjoy the process!

            I followed the cooking time for the cassoulet of 1 hour to boil the beans and 2 hours to braise. In re-heating, it took an additional half-hour than the stated one hour and fifteen minutes to get the whole thing piping hot (I also took the pot out of the refrigerator an hour before it was going to be reheated)

            A word of warning. This recipe made a lot! Imagine a 9-quart Le Crueset dutch oven filled almost to the brim. I think the entire pot was about 40 lbs ( I think the pot –empty- was 25 lbs alone). I think I could have fed 10 people easily with it (although I think there might not be enough duck confit to go around as they were the first to disappear).

           Oh but what a heartwarming dish this was. It was truly an amazing alchemy of all the ingredients: the beans so pleasantly sweet, the wonderful broth so perfect for dipping bread and the duck confit attaining such exquisite flavor and texture as the succulent meat almost fell off the bone!

            So Peabody – I hope you eat duck and beans!

Pink-Sauce Duck?

I was going through my freezer one weekend when I discovered several packages of pekin duck breasts. The “hungry” hubby declared that they tasted too much like chicken and he preferred the Moulard duck variety. But I liked them, and wanted to give them another chance. No sense in letting perfect packs of duck breasts wallow in the depths of the freezer, get freezer burn and eventually get thrown out in God knows when.

            So I pulled out my trusty book for duck breast cookery. Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of Southwest France is a favorite on this subject matter. If there is one book that covers the duck from beak to tail, believe me, this is it. And this won’t be the last time I will be cooking from this book either because I have earmarked a couple more recipes I would like to try.

            Actually, the recipe I was cooking that day was one I have tried to make a couple of times before. But poor planning always got the best of me. If it was not the port wine I forgot, it would be the orange. The stars finally aligned that Sunday and all ingredients were at hand.

            There was a question about the “chickeniness” of pekin breasts. What brings out the flavor of food? Salt. My goof-proof fallback for most meat dishes is to salt early which amounts to ¾ tsp per pound of meat and let it sit for 24 hours. I have found that this process in no way alters the intrinsic flavor of food but serves more to enhance it, maybe because it keeps it juicier and the essence of the meat does not get cooked out. I have successfully done it with chicken and turkey; why not try it with duck breasts?

            I also had the sense to reduce the stock ahead of time so there were no tears over a long reduction period this time.

Duck Breasts with Port Wine Sauce

      Magret de Canard Poele au Porto Adapted from “The Cooking of Southwest France” by Paula Wolfert

This is an ideal dish for an elegant dinner

            4 boneless Pekinduck breast (about 1.75)

                   (original recipe called for 2 Moulard Duck breast)

            1 1/3 tsp Salt (around 3/4 tsp per pound)

            Pepper to taste

            1 cup ruby Port

            Juice of 1 orange

            3 cups unsalted chicken stock reduced to 1 1/3 cups

            1/3 cup heavy cream

1. Salt duck breast for 24 hours

2. Pat duck breasts dry. Prepare duck breasts by scoring the skin in a cross hatch pattern being careful not to expose the meat. 

3. Set a skillet on medium high heat and place the duck skin side down and sauté until the skin is browned. Spoon fat rendered off as needed. Flip the duck breast and continue to sauté until desired temperature is attained. Remove to a carving board, cover and keep warm.

4. Pour off fat from the skillet. Add the Port and orange juice to the skillet and bring to a boil over moderately high heat, scraping up any browned bits that cling to the bottom of and sides of the pan. Boil until reduced to a glaze. Add the reduced stock and boil until reduced by half, 2 to 3 minutes.

5. Transfer the sauce to a heavy 2-quart saucepan (See note below *). Return to a boil. Add the cream while the sauce is boiling hard, but do not stir. The cream will be “swallowed up” by the sauce. Boil vigorously for 5 minutes, or until you catch a glimpse of the bottom of the pan; remove from the heat. Season the sauce to taste with pepper and, if necessary, salt. Set aside and keep warm.

6. Slice the duck breast crosswise on the diagonal. Arrange the duck in overlapping slices on warm plates. Strain the sauce over the duck slices and serve at once.

* The sauce can be completed in the skillet, but it is tricky – there is a tendency to over reduce the sauce (it becomes oily). If this happens, add a tablespoon of water and swirl to combine.    

Cooking Notes:

            There was a small issue of the breast bunching up as it cooked. I think it was because the skin shrank and pulled the flesh tighter. Not a big problem but it did make the breast harder to cook because it suddenly got thicker, not sure if this happened the other time.

            My port-orange reduction was a tad over-reduced but did not cause any problem with the overall sauce. My only gripe with red wine sauces that you add cream to was they take on a pinkish hue (okay it is mauve-ish). This is unavoidable (after all when you add white to red you get pink), but not very appealing as a sauce for savory dishes in my opinion. I prefer a deep burgundy color to complement the dark meat of the duck.

However, once you taste the port-orange sauce that was whisked with the tasty fond from the pan sauté which was then enriched with a little cream, you will not look for any other accompaniment to your duck. It is smooth, a perfect balance of sweet and sour, and offers a sultry mouth-feel that coats your palate in anticipation of another taste.

            And the duck breast, plumped up with juiciness, is as provocative as the sauce that glazes it. It has lost its affinity to the “chicken taste” and has regained its identity as tasting like it should – duck!

          Now if only I can get over that pink sauce…

Pan Sauteed Duck

The “hungry” hubby and I were tossing around the idea of taking the “French Cuisine Boot Camp” at the Culinary Institute of America this summer. Some of our friends might think this as a weird plan for a vacation; who in their right mind would prefer to wake up early and report by 6am to class than to take a relaxing week by the beach in an exotic tropical island. Don’t get me wrong we do enjoy those idyllic getaway vacations but going through the catalog for the class and imagining myself at the CIA for a week is a very exciting notion.  I know it would be nothing like Michael Ruhlman 's experience as detailed in his book The Making of a Chef  but it would probably be the closest I can get without quitting my day job.

The class is arranged by regional cuisine and the one I am most interested in is Southwest France, which is discussed on the fourth day. My enthusiasm for this subject springs from  “The Cooking of Southwest France” by Paula Wolfert, which has a wealth of information on one of my favorite foods to eat: duck! Duck can be quite a frustration for me because a lot of restaurants cannot cook it the way I like, but those few times I’ve had it right it can be absolutely phenomenal. Even at home, cooking it is a hit or miss. I have tried cooking different types of duck breast like Moulard and Muscovy, but now I’ve decided to try the Pekin duck breast. The recipe I had in mind calls for a shallot vinaigrette and marinating the duck but I did not have enough time to do that so I cooked the duck breast as you would a Moulard that does not need to be marinated first. The method of cooking, pan–sautéed reminded me of  T.W. Barritt’s suggestion of just searing a duck breast in the pan to seal in the flavor and to yield crispy skin, so I guess this would be the perfect time to test this process.

Pan-Sautéed  Pekin Duck Breast with Shallot Vinaigrette

4 boneless Pekin Duck Breast

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Shallot Vinaigrette (recipe to follow)

            About 1 hour before serving, remove the duck breast from the refrigerator and while the fat is still cold, use a sharp knife to score the skin in a small 45 degree crosshatch pattern at a 45 degree angle. Dry the breast and sprinkle the sea salt and pepper.

            Heat a large heavy skillet over moderate heat. Add the duck breast, skin side down and immediately reduce the heat to moderately low. The fat will start to render and skin will turn brown in about 8 to 10 minutes, tilting to spoon of the fat. Season the flesh side with salt and pepper and flip the duck breast to brown the flesh side about 3 to 5 minutes. Cook the duck to the desired temperature; pinch the meat under the skin side to test for doneness. If it springs back quickly, the meat is rare; if there is some give, it is medium.

           Remove duck and tent with foil to let rest for about 10 minutes. Slice meat crosswise on the bias. Serve with shallot vinaigrette on the side.

Shallot Vinaigrette

            2 large shallots

            3  tbs. balsamic vinegar

             ¼ cup  olive oil
            1 tsp. minced fresh chives

            1 tsp. Dijon mustard

            pinch of salt, sugar, freshly ground pepper

            Soak shallot in balsamic vinegar for 10 minutes. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and let stand until ready to use.

Cooking Notes

            As I have stated before, I do not like medium rare duck, so I was pleasantly surprised that even as I cooked the Pekin duck breast to medium well, it was very tender and succulent. I always had problems cutting the duck breasts on the bias until I figured it out while cutting biscotti; that it was best to start cutting diagonally starting at the center, that way you have a baseline for both ends. The shallot and chives stand up very well to rich texture and taste of the duck. Be sure to use nicely aged balsamic vinegar for the vinaigrette so it   does not interfere with a nice glass of Cabernet to have with your duck! I am very pleased with this method of cooking duck breast and I think this will be my preferred technique from now on. I have seen another method, which uses the broiler, but I think this procedure is good if you want your duck rare to medium rare. I will still try the broiler method, after all this test kitchen will try everything especially if it has anything to do with duck!

            

Foie Gras in Blackberry Sauce

            I got alarmed when I read Michael Ruhlman's piece on MegNut's site about a certain politician wanting to pass a bill to ban the sale of foie gras in New Jersey (it’s already banned in Chicago). I hope such idiotic laws do not see the light of day in Virginia. In any case, this made me look at the contents of my freezer and realize that I am out of these precious morsels of duck liver; I usually buy a whole lobe to cut up and freeze.  It makes a fabulous first course or appetizer; all you need is something tart to cut through its richness. I have tasted it cold as a torchon or lightly pan seared; I prefer the latter preparation because the former sits heavier in my stomach and would simply ruin my appetite for the main course. Of course it is a matter of preference.

           For this preparation I loosely adapted a recipe from Patrick O’ Connell’s “Inn at Little Washington”.

Blackberry sauce

            1 tbs butter

            1 tbs chopped shallots

            6 oz. fresh blackberries

           1/3 cup water

            2 tbs currant jelly

            1 tbs chicken stock

            ½ tsp finely chopped thyme

            Freshly ground pepper to taste

            In a 2-quart saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the shallot and blackberries and sweat for 3 minutes. Add the currant jelly, water and stock and reduce until it is the consistency of syrup. Remove from heat and strain. Add the time and pepper. Add the thyme and pepper.

NOTE: In case you are lazy to make a sauce, you can buy sauternes jelly to have on standby, even lingonberry preserves are pretty good with foie gras.

Foie Gras

            Foie gras

            Salt and pepper to taste

            Fresh black berries    

            To prepare the foie gras, soak it in ice water for about 10 minutes. This draws out the blood and firms up the flesh to prepare for slicing. Separate the two lobes and remove any visible fat and sinew. Using a very sharp knife dipped in warm water, slice the foie gras on a bias about ¼ inch thick. Season with salt and pepper. In a heavy skillet, sear the foie gras on each side for about 30 seconds, or just until golden brown until a crust forms. Remove from skillet and blot on paper towels. Pour off any excess fat and deglaze with the blackberry sauce. Add fresh blackberries and

reduce to syrupy consistency.

COOKING NOTES:

            The first time I bought foie gras I did not know what a fresh lobe looked like. In short I was clueless as to what to do with it. The ice water bath and the warm knife really makes life easier as to its slicing so never skip this step. Also the first time we cooked it, we were seized with panic as we watched the slices dissolved steadily into a puddle of fat. I was left with barely discernible pieces of foie gras and any self respecting chef or chef wannabe for that matter, will be aghast by such irreverent treatment. It is best that the foie gras be at room temperature before cooking since you want a nice melting center to emerge as you sear it, which will not happen if it is cold. Foie gras freezes very well so don’t be discouraged from buying the whole thing. Remember, it could be intimidating to handle at first, but after your first one it gets a lot easier.

Casserole of Moulard Duck Breast with potatoes as prepared in the region of the Bigorre

Otherwise known as

Magret de Canard en Cocotte Comme en Bigorre

Bigorre in the Pyrenees is well known for the Tarbais bean and an ancient breed of black skinned pig and that’s as much as I know about this region. What I do know is what adjoins it, the region of Gascony is known for its foie gras (yeah!); and where there is foie gras there is duck and confit. I always thought that I am an authority when it comes to how a duck should taste. But in my route to discovering the many facets of this underused fowl (at least in U.S. homes) , I have come to a realization that I know so little about how a duck should be prepared so as to savor its unique and rich dark meat. I have to remove the barrier in my head that poultry should always be cooked “well done”. It is with this mentality that I have almost ruined this casserole and I am seeking a middle ground here or I would forever be consigned to ending up with very tough stringy duck. Is there a way to cook a duck breast all the way through and still end up with tender succulent meat? Or maybe cook it to just about pink in the center (middle ground), and still have wonderful flavor and texture? Some of you might even say, why even bother if you are going to cause such abomination by overcooking this fowl’s lovely meat?! Well for one thing, I love roasted duck, Peking duck and of course duck confit;which are all cooked to well done and still tender and succulent. This leads me to believe that it might be the type of duck I am using.  Duck meat in itself is very lean. But they vary very much in terms of the fat content under their skin and the taste of their meat. The three types of duck are the Pekin, Muscovy and Moulard. The Moulard is a cross between pekin and a Muscovy and is sterile and is prized for its wonderful gams which are specially used for confit. This duck has the most fat in it so it is ideal for rendering duck fat, plus it is vaunted to be the best tasting of all three. Muscovy has less fat and should be brined or you’ll always end up with tough meat. The pekin, I have not really tried dry cooking, I have used it to make duck stew so that does not really count. So far, in cooking duck, I have had moderate success in browning the skin first on a sauté pan and finishing it in the oven at 350 °F. My favorite so far was using a cherry sauce for the duck.

               In looking for another recipe and a full understanding of duck, I have found Paula Wolfert’s book, “The Cooking of Southwest France”. In here she has a gamut of different preparations and she explains in detail the difference between all three breeds of duck. I’ve decided to try her “Bigorre” way of preparing duck since it seemed in my mind then, the simplest.

Recipe

            2 boneless Moulard duck breast halves (magrets) 1 to 1 ¼ pound each

            salt and freshly ground pepper

            2 tbs rendered duck fat

            1 large sweet onion, halved and thinly sliced

            2 ounces finely diced ventreche or pancetta

            2 lbs. red potatoes

            ½ tsp. finely chopped fresh garlic

            1 tbs chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

1. Score skin of each duck breast in crosshatch lines without piercing the flesh. Season with salt and pepper. Place breast halves skin side down, in a 3 to 4 quart flameproof casserole set over moderately high heat. Brown skin to a beautiful caramel in about 4 minutes while continually removing the fat by tilting the casserole and spooning off the fat. Turn the duck breast over and quickly sear the other side. Transfer to a plate line with paper towels, tent with foil, and let meat rest for about 30 minutes. Discard the fat and wipe out the casserole.

2. While the duck is resting, heat the rendered duck fat in the casserole over moderately low heat. Add the onion and ventreche, cover, cook for 10 minutes, or until the onions are silky and the ventreche is crisp.

3. Meanwhile, slice the potatoes ¼ inch thick and pat each slice dry with paper towels. Raise the heat under the casserole to high, add the potatoes, and turn them in the fat for 2 minutes making sure all are coated before pressing down to form a disk. Continue to cook until some of the slices begin to brown. Again press the potatoes with a spatula to form a flat round cake. Reduce the heat to moderately low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Lift the cover and wipe away any moisture on the inside of the lid. Add the bay leaf and toss the potatoes gently so that the crisp bottom pieces mix with the rest of the potatoes and onions; cover and continue to cook for 5 minutes. Gently press down with spatula to reshape. Season with a little salt and pepper, cover and cook for 5 minutes more, shaking the casserole to keep the potatoes from sticking. Uncover, toss with the garlic and parsley, reshape by pressing down, and cook a few minutes more.
5. Carve the duck breasts into ¼ inch thick slices. The meat should be very rare. Spread the slices over the potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cover the casserole tightly, raise heat to high and cook for 2 to 3 minutes to brown the bottom of potato cake and finish cooking the duck. Bring the covered casserole to the table and serve hot.

RANT #1 Although “the hungry hubby” was very appreciative of the meal, I was a bit harder on myself. I burned the onions, therefore there was not much I can do to brown the potatoes properly or we will end up with a smoke filled kitchen. I think in this case it would be better to use a nonstick casserole, it did say cocotte so I should have used my enameled cast iron Le Crueset pot. Instead I used a regular sauté pan. Seriously, don’t any of you scratch your head and pause when the instructions call for a sauce pan or a sauté pan or a skillet or a dutch oven or a cocotte and now a casserole and wonder which pan it really is? Given some of them are obvious but I always mix up which one is the skillet or the sauté pan. Anyway, the picture of the casserole pan looked like my sauté pan so that was what I used.

RANT #2 Sometimes you need to leave well enough alone or should you? When I sliced the duck breast my knife slid perfectly through which hinted at the tenderness of the duck, but like the book said it was very rare. I looked at the hubby and we both knew that we wanted it cooked more than that. So I finished cooking more than the 3 minutes than the recipe stated taking a peek every now and then until the duck had a respectably pink center (not as the book wanted I assure you)

Action Plan:

      Though the duck was tasty it was quite chewy. So should I just stick to the "finishing in the oven" business?  That seems to yield very acceptable results. So why am I messing with a procedure that works? Because this is a (insert expletive here) test kitchen! Ok, even if they say that moulard yields the best taste, I think I will try the pekin now. I am after all an evolving gastronome (hey that sounds like a good blog name). My palate changes and can be faulty at times and if my hubby can be converted to finally eat lamb (which now he cannot have enough of) maybe we can be converted to eat medium rare duck. So please if anyone can have any words of encouragement, it will be well appreciated!