{"id":6562,"date":"2008-10-14T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-14T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMadFermentationist\/~3\/420961612\/duck-confit-for-cassoulet.html"},"modified":"2008-10-14T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-14T21:49:00","slug":"the-mad-fermentationist-duck-confit-for-cassoulet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/?p=6562","title":{"rendered":"The Mad Fermentationist: Duck Confit for Cassoulet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tAlong with four breasts of duck prosciutto<\/a> my two ducks also provided me with four legs for confit (using another great recipe from Charcuterie). The legs got a quick dusting with 1 oz of kosher salt along with pieces of garlic, bay leaves, black pepper, and cloves. After two days of curing in the refrigerator they had given up a bit of moisture, but didn’t look too different.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The next step was to render out some duck fat from all of the fat and skin that I had harvested from the ducks. To do this I added a cup of water and brought the mixture to a bare simmer. After 2 hours I strained out the what remained of the skin and chilled the fat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
I then cooked the duck legs submerged in the fat (along with a bit of lard) in the oven at 200 degrees for 6 hours. This low slow cooking makes for some incredibly moist and flavorful meat.<\/p>\n

After letting the legs stay under the fat for 4 days in the refrigerator I was ready to make Cassoulet. Cassoulet is one of the big French culinary classics, up there with Beef Bourguignon, Coq Au Vin, and Bouillabaisse. I decided to go with a recipe from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook.<\/p>\n

The first step was to simmer 5 cups of white beans (which I had already soaked overnight), 2 lbs of pork (I used shoulder, but belly is preferred), a piece of pork rind\/skin (I used a piece left over from making bacon<\/a>), a quartered onion, thyme, peppercorns, salt, and enough water to cover. After 1 hour the beans and pork (meat and rind) were mostly cooked, I discarded everything else (reserving the cooking liquid).<\/p>\n

To further add some Maillard reaction flavors I browned 6 sausages (I used German pork sausages) in a bit of the duck fat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
I then browned 3 sliced onions and a clove of garlic in the same pan. Once they were cooked I pureed them with the cooked piece of pork rind.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Once I had the duck, sausages, puree, beans, reserved cooking liquid, and a large pot it was time to build the cassoulet. I used my 5 qrt cast iron dutch over, but it was just barely large enough. I layered it (bottom to top) beans, duck, puree, beans, sausages, puree, beans, pork, puree, beans. I then added the reserved liquid from the beans to cover. Cooked with the lid on for 1 hour at 350 followed by another hour at 250.<\/p>\n

After the cassoulet cooled, I put it into the refrigerator overnight. When ready to eat you could just reheat at 350 for one hour with the lid off to crisp the top. However, I didn’t have 8 friends to join me for dinner so I just portioned out the cassoulet and reheated it depending on how much I needed. Here I was cooking for my roommate and a friend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The tender meat and creamy beans were terrific. The flavor is mostly a reflection of the quality of the ingredients and your technique, not over spiced, not too heavy. The one let down was the sausages, which were a bit too dry. My friend Zach (a chef) suggested I try Andouille next time, so that’s what I would suggest going with.<\/p>\n

If you are looking for something to drink with your cassoulet I would suggest a beer with some maltiness to complement the meat, but still enough dryness to clean the pallet. I though dubbels fit the bill nicely, particularly a bottle of Westmalle Dubbel I had with it one night.
\n\"\"<\/img><\/a>
\n\"\"
\"Technorati<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\tAlong with four breasts of duck prosciutto my two ducks also provided me with four legs for confit (using another great recipe from Charcuterie). The legs got a quick dusting with 1 oz of kosher salt along with pieces of garlic, bay leaves, black pepp…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}