Ad Lib Turkey Cassoulet Recipes

WHOLE-GRAIN BEAN AND TURKEY CASSOULET

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 3-quart casserole dish with cooking spray; set aside.
• Cut a 12-inch square of cheesecloth, lay it flat and place the onion, celery, parsley, thyme, garlic, bay leaf and cloves in the center. Tie opposite corners of the cloth to make a packet; set aside.
• Mix the breadcrumbs and melted butter together in a small bowl until the breadcrumbs are coated with the butter; set aside.
• Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium heat. Add the kielbasa and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned and crisp around the edges, 8 to 10 minutes. (Take care not to let the kielbasa drippings burn; reduce the heat to medium-low if necessary.) Remove the kielbasa and set aside. Add the broth to the pot and scrape up any browned bits. Increase the heat to medium-high. Add 5 cups water; stir in the farro and 1/2 teaspoon salt and nestle the cheesecloth packet in the liquid. Bring to a boil, then partially cover and reduce the heat to simmer. Cook the farro, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 1 hour (it will just be visible above the liquid). Discard the cheesecloth packet. Stir in the beans, tomatoes, 1/2 cup water, wine, browned kielbasa, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and a few grinds of black pepper and bring to a medium boil; cook until much of the liquid has been absorbed and the beans and farro are visible above the liquid, about 10 minutes.
• Carefully transfer the mixture to the prepared casserole dish and top with the buttered breadcrumbs. Bake until golden brown and bubbling around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot.

TURKEY AND BEAN CASSOULET

Steps:

• Place beans in medium bowl; add enough water to cover. Let stand overnight to soak.
• Drain beans; discard water. Place beans and all remaining ingredients except tomatoes and salt in 3 1/2 to 4-quart Crocker-Pot® Slow Cooker.
• Cover; cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours.
• To serve, remove bay leaves. Stir in tomatoes and salt. Cover; cook on low setting an additional 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

AD-LIB TURKEY CASSOULET

Steps:

• The day before assembling the cassoulet, season turkey legs generously with salt and pepper, then wrap and refrigerate overnight. Pick over beans and give them a rinse. Soak beans in a large bowl of cold water overnight.
• The next day, drain beans and put them in a large pot. Pour in fresh water to cover beans by 3 inches. Add small onion stuck with cloves and bay leaf. Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower to a simmer. Cook gently for 60 to 90 minutes, until tender. Add 2 teaspoons salt and stir with a wooden spoon to distribute. Let beans cool in the cooking liquid. (Beans may be cooked up to 2 days ahead and kept refrigerated in their liquid.) Drain beans in a colander set over a bowl. Reserve and use bean broth if you wish.
• Meanwhile, bring turkey legs to room temperature and heat oven to 400 degrees. Put legs in a roasting pan and cook, uncovered, until nicely browned, about 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 375. Add 3 cups hot broth to pan, then cover tightly and bake for 1 hour, or until meat is very tender. Remove legs from pan and let cool, reserving pan juices. Take off skin and gristle and remove bones (save these for stock), then tear or cut turkey meat into rough wide strips. Set aside.
• Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a wide, heavy soup pot over medium-high heat. Add diced onion and season generously with salt and pepper. Let onions soften and color a bit, stirring, then add cayenne, 1 tablespoon thyme and 3 cloves minced garlic. Add carrots and stir to coat. Add reserved pan juices plus 2 cups hot broth, turn down heat, and simmer until carrots are cooked but still firm, about 10 minutes. Add beans and gently mix with onion and carrot. Add turkey and bacon. Let simmer for 10 minutes more, adding broth as needed to keep beans a bit soupy, but not drowning. Taste broth and beans and adjust seasoning.
• Transfer bean mixture to a low, wide 3-quart baking dish. Arrange garlic sausage evenly over surface, then push down to bury each slice. Put bread crumbs in a small bowl and add olive oil and the 2 tablespoons melted butter. Add remaining thyme and garlic, and the parsley. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well with hands.
• Sprinkle crumb mixture over beans in an even layer. Push down on crumbs so they absorb some of the liquid. Carefully add more broth around edges of pan to make sure beans are well moistened. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Remove foil and bake uncovered until bread crumbs are crisped and brown, about 30 minutes. Let dish rest for 15 minutes, then serve, making sure everyone gets some crust. (May be prepared 1 or 2 days ahead and refrigerated. To reheat, bring to room temperature, moisten with hot broth and bake as directed above.)

HOW TO MAKE CASSOULET

Steps:

• We may think of it as decadent, but cassoulet is at heart a humble bean and meat stew, rooted in the rural cooking of the Languedoc region. But for urban dwellers without access to the staples of a farm in southwest France - crocks of rendered lard and poultry fat, vats of duck confit, hunks of meat from just-butchered pigs and lambs - preparing one is an epic undertaking that stretches the cook. The reward, though, may well be the pinnacle of French home cooking.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. However, it is also a relatively forgiving dish, one that welcomes variation and leaves room for the personality of the cook - perhaps more than any other recipe in the canon. As long as you have white beans slowly stewed with some combination of sausages, pork, lamb, duck or goose, you have a cassoulet.The hardest part about making a cassoulet when you're not in southwest France is shopping for the ingredients. This isn't a dish to make on the fly; you will need to plan ahead, ordering the duck fat and confit and the garlic sausage online or from a good butcher, and finding sources for salt pork and fresh, bone-in pork and lamb stew meat. The beans, though, aren't hard to procure. Great Northern and cannellini beans make fine substitutes for the Tarbais, flageolet and lingot beans used in France.Then give yourself over to the rhythm of roasting, sautéing and long, slow simmering. The final stew, a glorious pot of velvety beans and chunks of tender meat covered by a burnished crust, is well worth the effort.
• Named for the cassole, the earthenware pot in which it is traditionally cooked, cassoulet evolved over the centuries in the countryside of southwest France, changing with the ingredients on hand and the cooks stirring the pot.The earliest versions of the dish were most likely influenced by nearby Spain, which has its own ancient tradition of fava bean and meat stews. As the stew migrated to the Languedoc region, the fava beans were replaced by white beans, which were brought over from the Americas in the 16th century.Although there are as many cassoulets as there are kitchens in the Languedoc, three major towns of the region - Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse - all vigorously lay claim to having created what they consider to be the only true cassoulet. It is a feud that has been going on at least since the middle of the 19th century, and probably even longer.In 1938, the chef Prosper Montagné, a native of Carcassonne and an author of the first version of "Larousse Gastronomique," attempted to resolve the dispute. He approached the subject with religious zeal, calling cassoulet "the god of Occidental cuisine" and likening the three competing versions to the Holy Trinity. The cassoulet from Castelnaudary, which is considered the oldest, is the Father in Montagné's trinity, and is made from a combination of beans, duck confit and pork (sausages, skin, knuckles, salt pork and roasted meat). The Carcassonne style is the Son, with mutton and the occasional partridge stirred in. And the version from Toulouse, the Holy Spirit, was the first to add goose confit to the pot.The recipe for cassoulet was codified by the "États Généraux de la Gastronomie" in 1966, and it was done in a way that allowed all three towns to keep their claims of authenticity. The organization mandated that to be called cassoulet, a stew must consist of at least 30 percent pork, mutton or preserved duck or goose (or a combination of the three elements), and 70 percent white beans and stock, fresh pork rinds, herbs and flavorings.That settled the question of which meats to use. But there are two other main points of contention that still inspire debate: the use of tomatoes and other vegetables with the beans, and a topping of bread crumbs that crisp in the oven. Julia Child chose to do both, as we do here. "The Escoffier Cookbook" and "Larousse Gastronomique" give some recipes that include the tomatoes, vegetables and bread crumbs, and some that omit them. The beauty of it is that if you make your own cassoulet, you get to decide.Above, "The Kitchen Table" by Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779).
• Casserole dish You will need a deep casserole dish that holds at least eight quarts, or a large Dutch oven, to bake the cassoulet. If you use a Dutch oven, you won't need the cover. The cassoulet needs to bake uncovered to develop a crisp crust.Baking sheets All of the ingredients for a cassoulet are cooked before being combined and baked again. The meat can be cooked in any number of ways; here, the pork and lamb stew meat is roasted on rimmed baking sheets so that it browns.Large pot The beans and garlic sausage (or kielbasa) are cooked in a large pot before they are added to the casserole, though you could use a slow cooker or pressure cooker, if you have one. You will also need a second small pot for simmering the salt pork.Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has guides to the best Dutch ovens and baking sheets.
• This slow-cooked casserole requires a good deal of culinary stamina. But the voluptuous combination of aromatic beans with rich chunks of duck confit, sausage, pork and lamb is worth the effort. Serve it with a green salad. It doesn't need any other accompaniment, and you wouldn't have room for one anyway.
• The hardest part of making a cassoulet may be obtaining the ingredients. Beyond that, it helps to think of cooking and building it in stages. Once you've gathered and prepared the components (the meat, beans, salt pork, sausage, duck confit and bread crumb topping), assembling the dish is just a matter of layering the elements.• You can use any kind of roasted meats for a cassoulet, and the kinds vary by region. Substitute roasted chicken, turkey or goose for the duck confit, bone-in beef for the lamb and bone-in veal for the pork. Lamb neck is a great substitute for the bone-in lamb stew meat, and you can use any chunks of bone-in pork, like pork ribs, in place of the pork stew meat. (The bones give the dish more flavor, and their gelatin helps thicken the final stew.)• Do not use smoked sausages in the beans, or substitute smoked bacon for the salt pork. The smoky flavor can overwhelm the dish, and it is not traditional in French cassoulets. If you can't find salt pork, pancetta will work in its place, and you won't need to poach it beforehand.• You can buy duck confit at gourmet markets or order it online. If you'd prefer to make it yourself, this is how to do it: Rub 4 fresh duck legs with a large pinch of salt each. Place in a dish and generously sprinkle with whole peppercorns, thyme sprigs and smashed, peeled garlic cloves. Cover and let cure for 4 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. When ready to cook, wipe the meat dry with paper towels, discarding the garlic, pepper and herbs. Place in a Dutch oven or baking dish and cover completely with fat. (Duck fat is traditional, but olive oil also works.) Bake in a 200-degree oven until the duck is tender and well browned, 3 to 4 hours. Let duck cool in the fat before refrigerating. Duck confit lasts for at least a month in the refrigerator and tastes best after sitting for 1 week.• Don't think the meat is the only star of this dish. The beans need just as much love. You want them velvety, sitting in a trove of tomato, stock and rich fat. Buy the best beans you can, preferably ones that have been harvested and dried within a year of cooking. The variety of white bean is less important than their freshness.• Bread crumbs aren't traditional for cassoulet, but will result in a topping with an especially airy and crisp texture. Regular dried bread crumbs, either bought or homemade, will also work.• When you roast the meat, leave plenty of space between the chunks of meat so they brown nicely. More browning means richer flavor. You can also use leftover roasted meat if you have them on hand.• The bouquet garni flavors both the beans and the bean liquid, which is used to moisten the cassoulet as it bakes. To make one, take sprigs of parsley and thyme and a bay leaf and tie them together with at least 1 foot of kitchen string. Tuck the bay leaf in the middle of the bouquet and make sure you wrap the herbs up thoroughly, several times around, so they don't escape into the pot.• Feel free to use a slow cooker or pressure cooker for the beans. Add the garlic sausage (or kielbasa) about halfway through the cooking time. It doesn't have to be exact, since the sausage is already cooked; you're adding it to flavor the beans and their liquid.• Use a very large skillet, at least 12 inches, for sautéing the sausages and finishing the beans before you layer them into the casserole dish. • In this recipe, the beans are finished in a tomato purée, which reduces and thickens the sauce of the final cassoulet. But you can substitute a good homemade stock for the purée. You'll get a soupier cassoulet, but it's just as traditional without the tomatoes.• The salt pork is layered in strips into the bottom of the baking dish. Then, while cooking, it crisps and turns into a bottom crust for the stew. So it is important to slice it thinly and carefully place it in a single layer on the bottom of the dish (and up the sides, if you have enough). Don't overlap it very much, or those parts won't get as crisp.• The reserved bean liquid is added to the cassoulet for cooking, and its starchiness is what keeps the stew thick and creamy. Using stock instead would make for a soupier but still delicious cassoulet.• You create a substantial top crust with crunch by repeatedly cracking the very thick layer of bread crumbs as the cassoulet cooks, and by drizzling the topping with bean liquid, which browns and crisps up in the heat. It's best to crack the topping in even little taps from the side of a large spoon. You are looking to create more texture and crunch by exposing more of the bread crumbs to the hot oven and bean liquid, which should be drizzled generously and evenly.• If you like you can skip the bread crumbs entirely, which is just as traditional. The top will brown on its own, but there won't be a texturally distinct crust.• You do not have to make the cassoulet all in one go. You can break up the work, cooking the separate elements ahead of time and reserving them until you are ready to layer and bake the cassoulet. Or assemble the cassoulet in its entirety ahead of time, without bread crumbs, and then top and bake just before serving.
• Photography Food styling: Alison Attenborough. Prop styling: Beverley Hyde. Additional photography: Karsten Moran for The New York Times. Additional styling: Jade Zimmerman. Video Food styling: Chris Barsch and Jade Zimmerman. Art direction: Alex Brannian. Prop styling: Catherine Pearson. Director of photography: James Herron. Camera operators: Tim Wu and Zack Sainz. Editing: Will Lloyd and Adam Saewitz. Additional editing: Meg Felling.
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TURKEY CASSOULET

Steps:

• Combine turkey, bacon, celery, onion and garlic in a 13 x 9 baking dish. Bake in 500 degree oven for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 450. Stir in beans, tomatoes, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Cover with foil. Bake 25 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Remove and discard bay leaf.