Cassoulet

When you’ve got left-over meats why not make a cassoulet? You can confit some chicken legs or duck if that’s what’s laying around, or just sauté some vegetables, layer in the legs, add some sausage, cooked beans, add half a can of tomatoes, herbs like thyme and parsley, cover with bread crumbs, sprayed with duck fat, cook an hour in the oven and a fantastically complex one dish meal is ready for you.Can be accompanied by a salad, but definitely requires an old world red wine.

Here’s what we did:

Cook 1 cup of Sun Coast Christmas Lima Beans in a pressure cooker. (Beans had been soaked overnight, and cooked for 35 minutes. Too long. We estimate 20 minutes but will revise when we experiment again with these beans).

Make breakfast sausage into meatballs with the addition of herbs, cornmeal and quinoa and panko flakes. Add more flakes if the sausage won’t hold together as a ball for frying. Fry the balls and set aside. In the same pan sauté onion, carrot and garlic, add 1/2 can of crushed tomatoes, 2 T. of red wine and simmer until the beans are done. Add drained beans reserving the cooking liquid in case the cassoulet is too dry. Put chicken leg-thighs into the Le Crueset, cover with the bean and vegetable mixture. Chill overnight. Two hours before meal time, pre-heat oven to 350F. Add the meatballs on top, cover with a thin coat of bread crumbs, spray with duck fat or otherwise coat with oil or butter. Warm for 1 hours then turn up the heat to 425F until the top crust is brown and bubbling.