Carcassonne style Cassoulet recipe

Cassoulet, a robust meat and bean casserole from southern France, is an iconic dish. It’s been made since the mid 1300s according to a legend that, under siege from the English army, the people of Castelnaudary managed to survive starvation by pooling together their food supplies and coming up with a tasty stew! Every family seems to have their own version of the dish, Castelnaudary, Carcarssonne and Toulouse each have their own version! Thanks to the Académie Universelle du Cassoulet, Carcassonne for this traditional Carcassonne style Cassoulet recipe.

There’s an element of ritual to the preparation, a hint of humour, and apparently keeping to traditional methods are sure to make the cassoulet taste better!

You can see a great video of cassoulet being made on their website at: academie-du-cassoulet.com

Ingredients

1kg of haricot beans (Mazères ingots are traditional in Castenaudary)
1kg of so-called Toulouse sausage
1 shank, 1 trotter, 500g of fresh rinds, 400g of loin, 1 ham bone, all from well-raised pork, of course.
1 head of garlic, 4 large onions
5 beautiful candied duck (or goose) legs and their fat
1 bouquet garni (parsley, celery, thyme, bay leaf)
8 cloves garlic, coarse salt, pepper

Preparation

The rind bouillon

The day before, prepare a broth with rinds, trotters, shanks, ham bones (bouquet garni). Cook for approximately 2h30 on low heat. Well defatted, well skimmed, everything salted just right, rather less than more.

Dip beans

Always the day before, and after having sorted them well (you never know), soak the beans for a short night. If you sleep for a long time, get up to change the water at least 2 or 3 times.

The morning of the preparation

Drain the trotter, shank, rinds, ham bones, bouquet garni. Filter the broth. Roughly cut the cooked meats. Squash the bouquet garni to extract its quintessence. In a pan, melt the duck or goose confits, set aside.

Prepare pork and beans

Heat some fat and brown the pork loin cut into cubes. After browning, fry the finely chopped garlic and onions. Drain and reserve. Rinse the beans in cold, clear water, blanch the beans: skim well, leave for 5 to 10 minutes over low heat, drain.

Add the meat

Combine the broth with all the meats as well as the onion and garlic mince, pepper generously, adjust the salt content if necessary. Pour into a cooking dish, arrange the pieces of confit as well as the so-called Toulouse sausage previously cooked lightly in the oven and cut into pieces of approximately 10cm. Press in the pieces.

Cooking and tasting

Bake for around 2 hours (Gas mark 7) 210°. Regularly press the pieces into the broth and spoon broth over the top to keep moist. It tastes even better the day after!