Cassoulet cooking TODAY! Friday AM UPDATE!

[GoneOffShore]

Last edited Fri Jan 25, 2013, 11:09 AM - Edit history (2)

Defrosted the duck legs - all 36 of them and they are salted down and will be turned into confit tomorrow.

Friday I'm buying lamb cubes and ham hocks, sausages and pork belly, garlic and onions. Bought the beans last week along with the tomatoes.

Cassoulet for 30 people for my 65th next Saturday.

I will post pictures.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. sounds like a good time and a fun way to celebrate a milestone event.

can't wait to see the pix.

[840high]

2. You got me salivating.

[GoneOffShore]

3. Stage one - now cooling

Duck confit flavored with salt, peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme.

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A chorus of yums ran round the table.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. Yay! Pics !!

[GoneOffShore]

5. Glad you like it!

There won't be any updates with pics until Thursday. Unless I decide to post the wine buying trip.

Thursday's when I start cooking the beans and the ham hocks, plus the lamb, the pork belly and the ham hocks.

Friday I build and cook the cassoulet with the sausage and the tomato and carrots and onions, garlic, thyme and nutmeg. Then let it cool over night and reheat the next day.

And make the vinaigrette.

We've got a magnum of Veuve Cliquot cooling down, other wine coming, lots of food and it promises to be a good time.

[AngryAmish]

6. How the F do you keep your dutch oven so clean?

I have the same kind and mine looks like it was used to tar a roof. (the outside, inside i clean by soaking with a bleach solution)

[GoneOffShore]

7. That one isn't mine.

It's only been used about four times and I've used it twice.

But almost all of my Le Crueseut pots are pretty clean - I use BonAmi cleanser on the outside and inside.

[AngryAmish]

8. I scared I'd scratch mine

Then again they look like crap now...

[GoneOffShore]

14. Bon Ami is very gentle.

And they say you can put the enameled pans in the dishwasher. I've never done that.

Mrs GoS would, but I have a real prejudice against dishwasher's unless I can actually talk to them - And I don't speak Miele or Kitchen-Aid.

[In_The_Wind]

9. Let me be the first to wish you a happy birthday tomorrow.

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Everything sounds yummy.

[GoneOffShore]

11. Thank you. But it's next week - the 28th of Jan.

I've got the Medicare card in the wallet already.

[In_The_Wind]

13. Then you have an entire week to think about your wish.

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[geardaddy]

10. Yum!

Can't wait for the pictures!

Happy 65th.

[GoneOffShore]

12. Oh, there will be pictures!

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

[GoneOffShore]

15. Thursday and there is one day in the cassoulet countdown.

So, besides the duck confit, cassoulet gets meat from cooked ham hocks, lamb shanks, and sausages.

I cooked the lamb and the ham today.

Here are the pictures of the ham hocks:

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The meat from the lamb shanks:

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And the bread crumbs that will top one pot of the cassoulet:

[IMG][/IMG]

The beans are soaking and get cooked with the pork belly in the morning.

More pictures tomorrow.

[jpak]

16. I could eat my weight in confit of duck

yum!

[GoneOffShore]

18. And duck fat is supposed to be good for you.

According to a study done in France.

Though I don't have any links.

All I know is that it tastes mighty good and I've got 37 confited legs, lots of duck fat and 30 hungry guests on Saturday.

Oh yes and lots of garlic sausages, and beans.

All the guests are bringing wine and desserts and appetizers (like we're going to need appetizers).

There will be much "wretched excess"!

[jpak]

20. Garlic sausages and beans

what could go wrong?



(couldn't resist - wish I was there)

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

17. cassoulet, man oh man

The best I ever tasted was in a little village of about 200 people in Ardeche, France, largely unchanged since the middle ages. The sausages were out of this world.

[GoneOffShore]

19. Had cassoulet in Carcassone a couple of years ago.

Not very good and theoretically, the "home" of cassoulet.

Very touristy it was.

We've done a cassoulet party every year for the past 10 with a couple of breaks. Not to brag too much but, people ask to be on the waiting list.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

22. It was a homemade cassoulet

I attended a year of high school in France during the 1960s while my dad was serving in Vietnam. One of my classmates invited me to the small town on the Ardeche river that his father was trying to restore. The "old town" probably looked much as it did in the middle ages, with narrow winding unpaved walkways instead of streets, too narrow to admit a car, that were frequently covered by habitations overhead, forming tunnels. It was my friend's family's vacation place. His step mom was originally from the Toulouse region and had brought the ingredients for the cassoulet.

[GoneOffShore]

23. The homemade ones are the best.

Restaurants generally haven't the time or the inclination to go the "full monty" on cassoulet. Though I've heard that there are few.

I miss having the Tarbais beans for this, but I'll persevere with Great Northerns.

More pictures very soon.

[GoneOffShore]

21. Friday AM update

Starting up
The uncut pork belly:

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The soaked beans:

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Where it's going to happen:

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