French Cassoulet Clay Cooker Recipes

CLASSIC FRENCH CASSOULET

Steps:

• Preheat your oven to 325 F degrees.
• Brown the sausage: In a dutch oven or heavy bottomed sauce pan, brown the sausages whole. I prefer a smaller bite so I dice them up in pieces. Remove them once browned.
• Cook the chicken: Add the chicken breasts to the Dutch oven next, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the chicken is no longer pink and cooked through. Remove and set aside.
• Saute veggies: Add onion, carrot, and leeks to the pot in the residual sausage fat and cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Then add the shallots and garlic and saute for an additional minute.
• Deglaze pot: Add the white wine to deglaze the pot, scraping any brown bits from the bottom.
• Finish the cassoulet: Return the protein to the pot and add beans, herbs, water and seasoning. Bring to a simmer then cover and transfer to the oven to bake for 2 hours.
• Garnish with parsley and serve.

EASY AND DELICIOUS SLOW COOKER CASSOULET

Steps:

• Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook bacon until crisp and brown, turning often, about 10 minutes. Remove bacon and drain on paper towels; crumble when cool. Set bacon aside.
• Cook and stir onion in the same skillet until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in chicken, sausage, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, and black pepper; cook until chicken pieces are browned, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in tomato paste.
• Transfer chicken mixture to a slow cooker and stir in crumbled turkey bacon, great Northern beans, and diced tomatoes. Cover the cooker, set on Low, and cook until cassoulet is thickened and the chicken is very tender, 4 to 5 hours. Sprinkle with parsley before serving.

FRENCH CASSOULET CLAY COOKER

Steps:

• Place beans in 4 cups water in deep bowl; let stand 8 hours or overnight. Or, heat beans and 4 cups water in 2 quart saucepan, to boiling, boil briskly 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Let stand covered 1 hour.
• Soak top and bottom of 3 1/4 quart unglazed clay cooker in water about 15 to 20 minutes; drain.
• Combine beans with liquid, lamb, onion, carrot, garlic and thyme in clay cooker. Stir in tomato sauce. Insert bay leaf and ham hock in center.
• Place covered cooker in COLD oven. Set oven at 375°F (190 C). Bake, stirring once or twice, until ham, lamb and beans are tender, about 3 hours.
• Cut sausage into 1 1/2 inch pieces; pierce each piece with fork.
• Heat butter and oil in frying pan; stir bread crumbs in oil mixture until well coated.
• Remove ham hock from cooker. When cool enough to handle, discard bones and skin; cut meat into chunks. Return meat to cooker. Stir in sausage. Sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs.
• Bake uncovered until sausage is hot and bread crumbs are crisp and brown, about 35 minutes.
• Clay Cookery.

FRENCH CASSOULET

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
• Trim the excess skin from the duck or chicken and place on a lined baking sheet. Dry the trimmed skin in the oven, checking often, until crispy, about 15 minutes.
• Add the skin to a food processor along with the breadcrumbs, oil and the 1/8 teaspoon thyme leaves and blend until uniform. Set aside. (This step can also be done while the cassoulet is stewing).
• Heat the clarified butter over high heat in a heavy-bottomed saute or frying pan and, working in batches, sear the poultry, pork or lamb and sausage until they are caramelized, adding more butter if the pan gets dry. Remove the meats to a large roasting pan or deep broiler-proof baking dish as they are completed.
• In the same pan you browned the meat in, saute the onions, carrots and celery until they are caramelized. Add the tomatoes, wine, and 5 cups water, deglazing the pan by scraping all the loose particles from the bottom of the pan.
• Drain the beans and add them to the pan, along with the marjoram, parsley, bay leaves and 1/4 cup thyme. Bring the liquid to a boil.
• Pour the beans and liquid over the meats in the roasting pan, cover the pan tightly with foil if no lid is available and bake until the meat is fork-tender and the beans have absorbed most of the liquid and are tender, about 3 hours.
• Remove the meat from the pan, drain the liquid from the beans and vegetables and put it into a saucepan.
• Add two cups of the cooked bean and vegetable mixture to the liquid and puree with an immersion blender or puree in a blender before adding to the liquid. This will thicken the liquid into a sauce.
• Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour the liquid back over the remaining beans and vegetables, stirring to combine.
• Preheat the broiler.
• Slice the lamb or pork and lay it on the beans with the sausages and poultry legs. Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture on top of the cassoulet and broil until the top is lightly browned.

HOW TO MAKE CASSOULET

Steps:

• Soak Great Northern beans in water in a large bowl overnight. Drain beans and place into a large soup pot. Push whole clove into the 1/2 onion and add to beans; stir in garlic, bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, and 10 cups water. Bring beans to a simmer and cook over medium-low heat until beans have started to soften, about 1 hour. Drain beans and reserve the cooking liquid, removing and discarding onion with clove and bay leaf. Transfer beans to a large mixing bowl.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Cook bacon in a large, heavy Dutch oven over medium heat until lightly browned and still limp, about 5 minutes. Stir celery, carrots, and 1/2 diced onion into bacon; season with salt. Cook and stir vegetables in the hot bacon fat until tender, about 10 minutes.
• Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat; brown sausage link halves and duck confit in the hot oil until browned, about 5 minutes per side.
• Season vegetable-bacon mixture with 1 1/2 teaspoon salt, cracked black pepper, and herbes de Provence; pour in diced tomatoes. Cook and stir mixture over medium heat until juice from tomatoes has nearly evaporated and any browned bits of food on the bottom of pot have dissolved, about 5 minutes. Stir mixture into beans.
• Spread half the bean mixture into the heavy Dutch oven and place duck-sausage mixture over the beans; spread remaining beans over meat layer. Pour just enough of the reserved bean liquid into pot to reach barely to the top of the beans, reserving remaining liquid. Bring bean cassoulet to a simmer on stovetop and cover Dutch oven with lid.
• Bake bean cassoulet in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
• Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add 4 crushed garlic cloves, panko crumbs, and parsley to the melted butter. Season with salt and black pepper, and drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil over crumbs. Stir to thoroughly combine.
• Uncover cassoulet and check liquid level; mixture should still have several inches of liquid. If beans seem dry, add more of the reserved bean liquid. Spread half the crumb mixture evenly over the beans and return to oven. Cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes. There should be about 2 or 3 inches of liquid at the bottom of the pot; if mixture seems dry, add more reserved bean mixture. Sprinkle remaining half the bread crumb mixture over cassoulet.
• Turn oven heat to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and bake cassoulet, uncovered, until crumb topping is crisp, edges are bubbling, and the bubbles are slow and sticky, 20 to 25 more minutes. Serve beans on individual plates and top each serving with a piece of duck and several sausage pieces.

CHEAT'S FRENCH CASSOULET - CROCK POT OR LE CREUSET

Steps:

• Heat olive oil in a large skillet - fry the bacon until nearly crisp & then add the onions, garlic, & carrots. Cook over a high heat until they are just soft on the outside & turning a golden colour. Drain well & remove from pan. Add to crock pot or Le Creuset casserole dish.
• Add sausages and brown - remove & add to onion mixture.
• Add pork chop pieces & brown - remove and add to above mixture.
• Make up chicken stock and add wine. Mix tomatoes in with stock & teaspoon of sugar.
• Pour stock and tomatoes over the cassoulet in crock pot or le creuset - add bouquet garni & give everything a good stir!
• Add the beans and stir well again.
• Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and cook for up to 6 hours on high in crock pot or in le cresuet for 3 hours in a slow oven with the lid on, 150C/300°F.
• Half an hour before serving, take lid of le creuset to brown the top. It's difficult to brown in a crock pot, but it's not that essential to brown the top, as the reason behind the breadcrumbs is to soak up some of the juice & make a crust on top! If your crock pot is the type which you can put under the grill, then do so!
• Serve with mountains of fluffy mashed potatoes & stir-fried Savoy Cabbage.
• NOTE ON SAUSAGES:.
• Try to use very good quality high meat content sausages; in France Toulouse sausages are mainly used - they generally have a meat content of at least 85%. Good quality English style sausages are also good - I have a recipe posted for some English sausages: Recipe #190045.
• However, any kind of sausage can be used and in the past I have used: Choritzo, Italian Style, Chipolatas etc.
• The Pork chops can be replaced with chicken pieces, lamb steaks or Confit D'Canard - preserved duck, if you are lucky enought to have some!