Redneck Cassoulet

I have this redneck friend - wait.

Bahahahaha! Ok - I have hundreds. But one in particular is a foodie. A couple of years ago he got his hands on an older French cookbook, and he developed an obsession with cassoulet - a French peasant dish that has as many ways of making it - and as many claimants to the correct way - as good barbeque does here. If you ever get it made the right way - you'll not only see why, you'll become obsessed too.

If you look up exactly what it is you'll get a variety of recipes. That's ok. The key components are white beans (arguments abound as to type), pork (ditto) and some sort of herbaceous savory flavoring (ditto). I've also seen that cassoulet translates as 'white bean stew', but also that the stew was named after the large, sturdy, conical dish in which it simmers. You know - it doesn't matter.

Randy - my friend - first made it by ordering all the key ingredients from a French online import company. He went with the 'most' traditional or standard means of making it. That means white beans, lingot or coco, garlic sausage from Lanquedoc and duck confit (duck cooked it it's own fat, beyond luscious on it's own). This means of preparation is rumored to have begun during the Hundred's Year War, when starving soldiers pooled their provisions, and a star was born. Sorry - my inner history nerd reared it's head.

Anyhoo - I have to say, the first batch he prepared, with all the French imports, was one of the finer things I've ever tasted in my life, and validated why I love being a foodie in the first place. I don't have to deal with high end restaurants if what I can get at home (or in this case hand delivered by 4x4) is better. It was DIVINE. Luscious. Bombshell. Golden. Rock Star. Everything you could imagine something fabulous being - this topped it. Then he blew it. I was happily munching on what we were calling Duck Chittlins (the skin, browned in duck fat), when he said "Yeah, but $100 is too damn much to pay for a bowl of beans."

Uh - ok. Well. It was lovely while it lasted.

BUT. I should never have underestimated the obsession of the foodie. Lord knows I'm guilty of making 8 different batches of cream puffs in a night to get it just right. (Yes, I really did.)

He kept tinkering with the recipe, carefully looking at each ingredient on it's own, and evaluating what each one brought to the show. (Good boy! That's MY method!) And danged if he didn't tinker until he came up with some just as incredible as the first batch. The really cool thing? He did it all using local stuff. And get this - instead of making confit by slowing poaching duck in its own fat - HE POACHED CHICKEN IN BACON GREASE. Gotta say, that's a certain kind of base cunning there. And THIS bowl of beans sure doesn't cost $100. 

Try this - it's lovely beyond lovely.

1 lb Great Northern beans, soaked overnight in water
1 quart beef stock, low sodium
2/3 quart chicken stock, low sodium
1 large yellow onion, halved
1/2 lb bacon, crisped and fat reserved
5 bay leaves
5 chicken legs
Your entire jar of bacon grease (that just proved this is an Appalachian recipe)
1 lb pork loin, cubed
1 12 inch piece of Andouille sausauge
1 Tbl salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp smoked salt
3 sprigs fresh thyme

1. Drain and rinse soaked beans, and place in a large Dutch oven or stock pot. Cast iron works better here if you have it.
2. Add beef and chicken broths, onion halves, 2 bay leaves and bacon grease.
3. Cover, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Allow to simmer just until beans begin to get tender, or are about 2/3 done.
4. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350F.
5. Brown the chicken legs in a cast iron or oven safe skillet. Once brown, add enough bacon grease to cover. If they won't cover and you couldn't get your mama or granny to give you hers, then you'll need to turn the legs in the oven and/or baste them as they cook.
6. Once covered, pop the skillet in the oven, and allow to cook for 40 minutes. Reduce heat to 300F, and continue to cook for another hour, or until the meat wants to fall off the bone.*
7. Brown the pork loin and Andouille until beautifully golden brown. Set aside.
8. Once beans have reached the 2/3 doneness stage, add chicken confit, pork, andouille and remaining bay leaves to the pot.
9. Add salt, smoked salt, pepper and 1 cup of the bacon grease in which you confit'ed the chicken.
10. Cook in the oven at 300 for another 1 1/2 hours, uncovered, or until beans are tender and creamy.
11. We never said this was diet food. There's a reasons peasants were rather rotund.

Serve with cracklin cornbread.
 
*Contrary to all logic - meats confit in fat (even bacon grease) are not the least bit greasy. I don't know why. Don't care. They are tender, moist and succulent beyond belief.