This Ina Garten Cassoulet recipe is easy, quick, and made with duck or chicken legs, breadcrumbs, olive oil, fresh thyme leaves, and clarified butter and takes around 4 hours and 30 minutes to cook to perfection. Serve your Cassoulet with roasted duck fat potatoes, sautéed spinach, braised red cabbage, arugula salad, and lemony celery crunch salad for a well-rounded meal.
To make this Cassoulet, Ina starts by preheating the oven and preparing a breadcrumb mixture with duck or chicken skin. She then sears the meats, sautés the veggies, and combines everything in a roasting pan. After baking for about 3 hours, she thickens the liquid and broils the dish with the breadcrumb topping.
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Ina Garten Cassoulet Ingredients
4 duck or chicken legs, cut into two pieces
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 cup + 1/8 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons clarified butter
3 pounds boneless lamb leg or pork shoulder
1 pound Polish or bratwurst sausage
1 1/2 cups large dice Spanish onions
1 1/2 cups large dice carrots
1 1/2 cups large dice celery
4 fresh tomatoes, large dice
1 cup dry white wine
5 cups water or chicken bouillon
1 pound navy beans, soaked overnight
1/4 cup fresh marjoram leaves, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
6 bay leaves
Salt and ground black pepper
How To Make Ina Garten Cassoulet
Preparation: Preheat your oven to 375°F. Trim excess skin from duck or chicken and dry it in the oven for about 15 minutes. Blend the dried skin with breadcrumbs, olive oil, and 1/8 teaspoon thyme leaves. Set aside.
Searing the Meat: Heat clarified butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sear duck, lamb, and sausage until browned. Transfer them to a large roasting pan.
Cooking Veggies: In the same pan, sauté onions, carrots, and celery until browned. Add tomatoes, wine, and water. Bring to a boil.
Combine and Bake: Drain soaked navy beans and add them to the pan with herbs. Pour this mixture over the meats in the roasting pan. Cover and bake for about 3 hours, or until meat is tender.
Final Touch: Remove meat, and drain liquid from beans and veggies. Blend some of the mixture to thicken the liquid. Adjust seasoning. Lay sliced meat on beans, sprinkle breadcrumb mixture, and broil until the top is lightly browned.
What To Serve With Cassoulet
For a well-rounded meal, consider pairing your cassoulet with side dishes like roasted duck fat potatoes, sautéed spinach, or braised red cabbage. Lighter options could include a celery salad or an arugula salad. If you’re looking for something unique, try serving the cassoulet over a cauliflower steak.
How To Store Cassoulet
In The Fridge:
Store the cassoulet in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. Make sure it has cooled down to room temperature before sealing it to maintain the best quality.
You can freeze cassoulet for up to 2-3 months. Place it in a freezer-safe container, leaving some space for expansion. Thaw it in the fridge before reheating.
How To Reheat Cassoulet
To reheat the cassoulet, place it in a preheated oven at 350°F for about 20-25 minutes, or until it’s heated through. You can also reheat it on the stovetop over low heat, stirring occasionally to ensure even warming.
This Ina Garten Cassoulet recipe is easy, quick, and made with duck or chicken legs, breadcrumbs, olive oil, fresh thyme leaves, and clarified butter and takes around 4 hours and 30 minutes to cook to perfection. Serve your Cassoulet with roasted duck fat potatoes, sautéed spinach, braised red cabbage, arugula salad, and lemony celery crunch salad for a well-rounded meal.
Ina Garten Cassoulet Ingredients
How To Make Ina Garten Cassoulet
Preparation: Preheat your oven to 375°F. Trim excess skin from duck or chicken and dry it in the oven for about 15 minutes. Blend the dried skin with breadcrumbs, olive oil, and 1/8 teaspoon thyme leaves. Set aside.
Searing the Meat: Heat clarified butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sear duck, lamb, and sausage until browned. Transfer them to a large roasting pan.
Cooking Veggies: In the same pan, sauté onions, carrots, and celery until browned. Add tomatoes, wine, and water. Bring to a boil.
Combine and Bake: Drain soaked navy beans and add them to the pan with herbs. Pour this mixture over the meats in the roasting pan. Cover and bake for about 3 hours, or until meat is tender.
Final Touch: Remove meat, and drain liquid from beans and veggies. Blend some of the mixture to thicken the liquid. Adjust seasoning. Lay sliced meat on beans, sprinkle breadcrumb mixture, and broil until the top is lightly browned.
Cassoulet is rich and stewy, with a fragrant meaty broth. A simple green salad and hunks of torn baguette to dip into the broth are all you need to complete the meal. Serve it with a light red wine such as Beaujolais or Cahors, a full-bodied rosé, or chilled dry white wine.
Toulouse sausage is deliciously grilled over hardwoods, gently roasted in a 180°C oven, and, of course, in cassoulet and other winter soups. The Toulouse Sausage is offered in a variety of tastes in France. The main ingredients, however, are pork, red wine, and garlic.
Nestle sausage into cassoulet and bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more. Let stand 10 minutes. Gently stir beans, mashing some with back of spoon, to thicken broth before serving.
Madiran or Malbec make perfect pairing choices with hearty cassoulet. Look for the appellation Cahors, which is an area of Southwest France that produces such dark wines that they are often called "black wine." If you cannot find Cahors, settle on a fine Argentine Malbec.
Cassoulet, a hearty slow-simmered stew of sausage, confit (typically duck), pork, and white beans, is one of the great hallmarks of French country cuisine. The best versions are cooked for hours until the beans and meat meld into a dish of luxuriant, velvety richness.
The beleaguered townspeople gathered up the ingredients they could find and made a large stew to nourish and bolster their defenders. The meal was so hearty and fortifying that the soldiers handily dispelled the invaders, saving the city from occupation.
All the ingredients for a good cassoulet can be found in most grocery stores. Purists will argue that you need to find real tarbais beans but I have found white kidney beans work just as well.
According to his book French Regional Food, co-authored by historian Loïc Bienassis, Castelnaudary cassoulet generally contains confit goose or duck, Carcassonne's has pork chops, and the Toulouse version uses mutton and the city's famous sausage.
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.
Conran suggests Polish kielbasa as a Toulouse substitute, but the smoky sort I use makes everything taste like a frankfurter, so I'd steer clear – basically, you need something with a very high meat content, and preferably a hefty whack of garlic.
There are three types of cassoulet – the Holy Trinity. There's the 'Father' (pork and goose), the 'Son' (mutton and partridge), and the 'Holy Ghost' (sausage, mutton, and duck).
It goes like this: one-third of ragout mixture, half of the sausage and duck meat, another third of the ragout mixture, remaining sausages and duck meat, then remaining ragout mixture. Sprinkle most—but not all! —of the breadcrumbs on top. Get the juices flowing.
I need to get one thing off my chest right away: While you can use duck confit (or even goose) to make cassoulet, you don't have to. Here, I offer the option of plain old chicken thighs or raw duck legs.
Red wines are often considered the best pairing for cassoulet. The hearty and rich flavours of the dish can be balanced with the tannins and fruitiness of the wine, and the acidity can also help to cut through the richness of the dish, providing a well-balanced and satisfying pairing.
Introduction: My name is Mrs. Angelic Larkin, I am a cute, charming, funny, determined, inexpensive, joyous, cheerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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