Cassoulet

We had lots of extra pork and decided to make a Cassoulet. This heavy French dish is a favorite on a cold winter day. We remember in San Francisco a favorite French Bistro wrote on their blackboard how many days the Cassoulet had been cooking. It was in the thousands. They just kept refreshing it with more pork and beans.

This one we basically winged as to the recipe. We soaked  good beans and cooked till soft. Then we started adding ingredients from the refrigerator. It was kind of general lets throw everything into the pot that we had that was appropriate for the dish. We had some left over pork ribs from a dinner at Mozza. We stripped the meat from the ribs and added it. We also had a Tomato, brown sugar, onion compote from Valerie Confections, in it went.

Lastly we knew the Cassoulet needed sausage. Off I went to McCall’s Meat and Fish to get home made sausage from Nate. I was expecting to get fennel sausage, but Nate convinced me to get spicy Italian Sausage to “Kick up the dish” which can be heavy. He was correct it really made it! One of the great things about McCall’s is that you can discuss recipes and ideas with them. They are accomplished professional chefs.

Finally we topped with lots of toasted breadcrumbs mixed with olive oil.

We started the dinner with our rendition “The Hungry Cat Salad” we have made it many times and really like it. You can find the recipe in our blog of November 21, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe.

Summon joined us, and it was a delicious dinner with lively talk.