Clas­sic Cassoulet

(serves 8)

for the con­fit:

1/2 cup/120ml olive oil

1/2 cup/100g duck fat

4 duck legs

coarse sea salt

4 fat gar­lic cloves, fine­ly chopped

4 bay leaves, bro­ken in half

2 cups/570ml white wine

for the cas­soulet:

4 Toulouse sausages, ready-made or make your own

350g/12oz bel­ly pork, skinned and diced (slab bacon, or ordi­nary bacon if you must)

350g/12oz lamb neck fil­let, shoul­der or rolled breast, diced

1 large onion, chopped roughly

2 large car­rots, chopped roughly

2 cel­ery sticks, chopped roughly

400g/14oz can chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp toma­to purée

2 heaped tbsp fresh flat leaf pars­ley, chopped

1 heaped tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

sea salt and pepper

290ml/½ pint dry white wine

3 soup cans hari­cot or can­nelli­ni beans, drained and rinsed

3 1/2 cups/850ml chick­en stock, with more to add lat­er if needed

for the topping:

1 large day-old baguette (or 1 cup fresh home­made breadcrumbs)

2 fat gar­lic cloves, halved

4 tbsp butter

2 heaped tbsp fresh flat leaf pars­ley, chopped

1 heaped tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

In a large fry­ing pan big enough to accom­mo­date the duck, and which has a lid, heat the duck fat until melt­ed.  Place the duck legs skin side down in the fry­ing pan, sprin­kle with the salt, gar­lic and bay leaves and pour the white wine around. Place the lid on top and cook at the tini­est sim­mer pos­si­ble, for two hours. Of course, for real con­fit you’d pour the winey fat over the duck in a sealed con­tain­er and pre­serve it, but no need for that step here, as you’ll be using the duck straightaway.

Mean­while, place the sausages in a 220C/425F oven and bake for 20 min­utes. Set aside to cool.

In a large stove­top- and oven­proof dish that will hold all the ingre­di­ents, place the bel­ly pork and heat gen­tly until fat begins to be released, then raise heat and cook, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until all the fat has been released and the pork is crisp, but not dry. Lift the pork onto a plate with a slot­ted spoon, leav­ing all the fat behind.

Add the lamb to the pork fat and cook until col­ored on all sides, then lift out with slot­ted spoon and set aside with the pork.

Add the diced veg­eta­bles to the pork fat and cook till soft. Tip the ingre­di­ents from the plate back into the dish. Add the toma­toes, toma­to purée and herbs, then sea­son with sea salt and pep­per to taste.

Add the wine, hari­cot beans and chick­en stock to the dish and bring to the boil. Stir, then low­er the heat so the liq­uid is just sim­mer­ing. Keep the mix­ture in the same dish to cook or trans­fer it to an earth­en­ware dish.

When the duck has cooked for two hours, remove it from the duck-fat/wine and cool to han­dle. Remove the skin from the duck, then tuck the duck legs into the cas­soulet.  Set aside the duck-fat/wine mixture.

Peel off the sausage skins, slice the sausage­meat thick­ly on the diag­o­nal and tuck into the dish.

Cov­er the dish and bake for 1 hour, stir­ring once. Stir, then cook uncov­ered for a fur­ther 1–1½ hours, stir­ring halfway, until the meat is real­ly ten­der and the sauce is thick­ened. Take the dish out of the oven and remove the duck legs. Strip the meat from the bones (it will fall off eas­i­ly) and return the meat to the dish. Stir and add a lit­tle stock and some of the duck-fat/wine, if nec­es­sary. Sea­son if nec­es­sary, then return to the oven and bake for anoth­er 15 min­utes until all the meat and beans are very ten­der.  At this point the cas­soulet can be refrig­er­at­ed for up to two days, then reheat­ed to serve.

For the top­ping, cut the crusts off the baguette, tear the bread into pieces and put in a food proces­sor. Add the gar­lic and chop into coarse crumbs (you should have about a cup of gar­licky bread crumbs).

Heat the but­ter in a large fry­ing pan until siz­zling, then stir fry the bread­crumbs and gar­lic over a mod­er­ate to high heat for 7–8 min­utes until crisp and gold­en. Remove from the heat, toss in the herbs and stir to mix, then sea­son well with salt and pepper.

Ladle the cas­soulet in gen­er­ous serv­ings into warm bowls, sprin­kle on a bit of top­ping, and serve.

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