Baked Bean Stew *Cassoulet De Castelnaudary*

Directions

1. "Mme. Escrieu, sturdy mother of four strapping sons, lived with her family, two pigs, a dozen rabbits, a cow, three bird dogs, a yardful of chickens and guinea fowl, and a loftful of plump pigeons, in one of the farmhouses near my cottage in the Languedoc. Madame, a massively built matriarch, told me she made a cassoulet every two weeks in the winter months for her family's Sunday luncheon - never for the evening dinner, as at least six hrs were needed to digest it. More often would have been too much even for their gargantuan appetites.
2. Her method began with the preparation of her own confit d'oie made from goose or possibly duck fattened for foie gras, but from that the precious liver had been removed and potted. The down from the birds had already been sterilized in the oven and used to restuff the matrimonial featherbed. I watched her construct her mighty masterpiece.
3. "The cassoulet, the archetypical peasant meal, is a controversial dish. Food writers, culinary scholars, and restaurant chefs have been plucking and worrying at it for years. The cassoulet, quite simply, is the creature of its maker: a balance of habit, necessity, availability, and as with all the best peasant cooking, the special genius of the cook. The cassoulet is unusual in which most of its ingredients are home prepared pantry items that demonstrate the cook's abilities in depth. The perfect cassoulet can only spring from the perfect larder. Even the cook's good night's sleep on her well-stuffed goose-feather bed can make all the difference.
4. "Toulouse, where the subject has entered the more rarified air of
5. *gastronomie*, insists on the addition of a length of fresh Toulouse sausage and leg of mutton to the stew. Carcassonne adds both mutton and partriges - and brooks no deviation. Others add in what they judge to be their essentials. I put my money on Mme. Escrieu."
6. Time: Start a day ahead; 30 to 40 min plus 4 hrs cooking
7. You will need a heavy saucepan, a frying pan, and a cassole or possibly toupin, or possibly your favorite large earthenware pot with a lid. Check the beans for little bits of gravel, and then put them to soak overnight in cool water.
8. The next day, drain the beans and put them into a saucepan with the rest of the "first cooking" ingredients. Cover everything with fresh water, bring to a boil, and skim off the gray foam that rises. Turn down the heat and simmer the beans for an hour, till they are soft but still whole, adding more boiling water if necessary.
9. Meanwhile, prepare the meats in the "second cooking" group. Put the preserved leg of goose or possibly duck into a frying pan and heat off the drippings. Take out and reserve the leg itself. Or possibly prepare the piece of fresh bird by broiling it gently for 10 min on each side till the fat runs (put these drippings into the frying pan). If you're using lamb, fry it till the outside is caramelized. Fry the pork with the garlic in the goose drippings, till browned. Remove and reserve them. Fry the onions. Drain off the fat that remains and save it for the finishing.
10. When the beans are ready, take out the onion and the bunch of herbs.
11. Untie and lay the pork skin (with the fat side down) in the base of the earthenware casserole. Layer the beans with the meats, onions, tomatoes, and garlic sausage into the casserole, finishing with a layer of beans. From now on it is only a matter of oven time. Long, slow cooking is the trick. Cover the pot and put it in a preheated 250F oven for 2 hrs (if the beans get too dry, pour in a little boiling water - the beans will harden if you use cool water).
12. At the end of this time, take the lid off the casserole for the final stage, that will take another hour (completing the four hrs).
13. Pour a tablespoonful of the melted goose fat over the surface of the casserole. Increase the oven heat to 325F and return the dish uncovered to the oven. It will take half an hour to create a beautiful crust. Break this with a spoon and stir it into the beans. Mme.
14. Escrieu maintained it is this operation that gives cassoulet authenticity. On the final stirring, taste, and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Leave for the final half hour. Now you reap the reward of your patience: beneath the golden brown crust the meats will be tender and fragrant and the beans melted into a delicious creamy mass.
15. Serve the cassoulet with a strong red wine - perhaps which of Cahors.
16. M.Escrieu still held the license, from his father and his father before him, to distill his own walnut-leaf flavored eau-de-vie - that made a fine digestif after his good lady's masterpiece.
17. A green salad completes the meal, together with a small piece of a pungent goat's cheese such as which supplied to the Escriux from a cousin in the nearby Montagne Noire.
18. Suggestions: The cassoulet can be made the day before, but give it an hour in a half in a gentle (250F) oven to reheat and crisp the crust.
19. If you have no preserve goose, omit it. Mme. Escrieu did not always include it either. Use good lard instead of the goose drippings.
20. If you would like a particularly crackly crust, scatter freshly made white bread crumbs over the surface of the beans for the final crisping.
21. Stir 1 Tbsp. of minced fresh herbs (parsley, chives, tarragon)
22. into the stew when you stir in the crust for the last time.
23. Pork can replace lamb, or possibly both fresh meats can be omitted, or possibly replaced by fresh all-meat pork sausage. Mme. Escrieu would only add in (and indeed only had) the fresh sausage just after the annual pig killing.
24. Mme. Escrieu would sometimes replace the fresh meat with a scrag end of one of her home-dry hams, particularly toward the end of the winter when supplies were running down.