Cassoulets, stews & soups, three things I look forward to with the beginning of fall. Not that they are only fall and winter foods, a good cassoulet is enjoyed anytime,spring and summer sing with gazpacho and chilled soups but I gotta tell you cassoulet is the comfort of comfort foods for me. I am saddened by the way many chefs have bastardized this great classic calling what should be a casserole a cassoulet. The classic was in fact a peasant dish of white beans, rabbit, duck, partridge and game that would sometimes be cooking for months, yes I said months by continuously adding ingredients and keeping the pot cooking so to speak. Depending on the region would constitute the ingredients such as pork, duck and partridge but one thing can be said for certain, White Beans cooked very slowly. Traditionally this flavorful pot of goodness would be topped with fried bread, duck cracklings or pork cracklings, this has been replaced in many recipes with puff pastry. I said many chefs bastardize this great classic, allow me to qualify this, what I mean is they use the term "Cassoulet" very loosely, sure every recipe has variations in fact I encourage taking a recipe and adding you own twist to it such as different herbs or substituting chicken for duck, you get where I am going with this, changing the base from white beans and calling a dish cassoulete should be punishable by law such as using black beans and calling it Black Bean Cassoulet, please......
As you can see I am on one again so I will be back with my Cassoulet Recipe that is just that, "Cassoulet."
Until then Think Good Thoughts & Smile....
No comments:
Post a Comment