Cassoulet... It's been a while

Dear Readers,

I haven’t posted in months. I owe an explanation to the readers (reader… I know it’s just my sister!). Things have been busy with work, and on any given day - by the time I’m done with that and giving time to my family and friends carving out the time to keep this blog up to date has fallen to the wayside. I’m going to try to be better.

This weekend felt like the first real weekend of fall, it was cool and rainy. I spent my Saturday morning at the Wychwood Barns for The Stop TO’s farmers’ market, helping out my friend The Wild Blue Bakery . It was so lovely, there is such a beautiful community at that market and neighbourhood. After a long work week those couple of hours interacting with people excited for their first proper baguette in years (due to celiac), proud grandfathers introducing us to their newest granddaughter with beaming pride, and an excuse to spend 6 hours hanging out and chatting with my friend between sales, was exactly what my soul needed. I left feeling refreshed, happy, and slightly chilled. So I collected what I’d purchased at the farmers’ market, made a quick stop at my local grocery for a few necessary ingredients, and headed home to make my favourite cold weather comfort food - Cassoulet.

I lived in France for a while when I was young, but I learned how to make cassoulet from my Mom. She found the recipe it in a cookbook in the early 2000s and decided to give it a try. The first version came out okay - it turned out that she and I had a lot to learn about cooking duck! But it became something I needed to master. So here’s what you need.

The base ingredients: Sausage (fresh mild italian and smoked), bacon, chicken thighs, chicken broth, canned tomatoes, white kidney beans, onion, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, panko (not pictured), and parsley.

The key is to start by browning/cooking off all the meat. I started with the chicken thighs, salting the meat side and placing them skin side down in a dutch oven that I pre heated with olive oil.

Once the skin was browned I did the same with the fresh sausages in the same pot. Once they were brown on all sides I chopped up the smoked sausage and bacon, and browned each separately.

Once they were all done and off to the side I diced one whole sweet vidalia onion and cooked it in the fat render off from browning the meat. I added 6 whole garlic cloves (from a fairly young head of garlic so they weren’t that strong!).

I sautéed everything till the onions were starting to go translucent, then added the bacon and smoked sausage back into the pot.

Once it was incorporated I added the can of tomatoes, roughly breaking up the whole tomatoes with my spatula. Then I added 2 cups of chicken stock, 1 cup of tomato passata, 2 tbsp of fresh thyme, and some salt.

Once it was all combined I added the bacon, browned smoked sausage, and 6 fresh bay leaves.

Then I added the seared chicken thighs and fresh sausages into the mix, covered it with tinfoil, and popped it into the oven at 350.

The mixture needs to bake for about 2 hours. In the mean time I watched two episodes of Fleabag on Amazon (HIGHLY recommend!).

Once we were close to the end of 2 hours I prepped the breadcrumb. I minced 1 clove of garlic, rough chopped 1 tbsp of thyme and half a cup of parsley, then added 1 cup of panko bread crumbs and 1 tbsp of fresh cracked black pepper.

Once the cassoulet is bubbling, pull it out of the oven, uncover it, and shake the breadcrumb mixture on top.

Then I popped the whole thing back in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Once we hit 30 minutes I pull it out and sink the top layer down, letting some of the liquid come up the side on top of the breadcrumb layer.

Back in the oven for another 15 minutes, I cranked the over up to 400 to crisp up the top.

Then it’s done.

Portion out into a bowl, one chicken thigh and one sausage per person with some of the tomatoey bean mixture per serving.

I served it up with a kale salad and thick slice of the the herb and cheddar sour dough from Del la Terre bakery in Vineland.

That’s it, I ate an early dinner, packed the leftovers up for some dinners this week, and finished binging Fleabag.

I’m going to try to be better, and post consistently. We’ll see how it goes, but I love this and whether or not anyone other than my family members are paying attention I want to keep posting. Just for me.