The Everyday French Chef

Cassoulet, one of France’s most popular dishes, is a specialty of the southwest Languedoc region. Dried white beans are simmered to tenderness, infused with garlic and baked in a slow oven with various meats — sausages, bacon, duck or goose confit, and sometimes pork or lamb. This is French comfort food at its finest. It’s a festive dish for a crowd that could be fun to make over the holidays. Preparation takes time, but it’s worth it.

Cassoulet / Cassoulet

The peasant origins and local roots of cassoulet make it a good example of terroir, a word that conveys the character of a dish emanating from a particular patch of land. This terroir quality is a key to cassoulet’s popularity — I’ll return to this later — but just because the dish is popular doesn’t mean it’s not controversial. Ask someone from the region what meats to include in cassoulet and an argument is sure to ensue. What kind of sausages? Duck or goose? With or without pork or lamb? With or without tomato? Topped with breadcrumbs or not? Even the quantities of the various elements are under dispute.

In an effort to resolve the matter, the General Asssembly of French Gastronomy (this body actually exists) determined in 1966 that the proper proportions of a cassoulet should be 70% beans and 30% meat. But the quarrel didn’t end there. The southwest cities of Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse sponsor rival Brotherhoods of Cassoulet that compete to promote their different versions of the dish. Their robed members recite chants to the glory of cassoulet in the local Occitan dialect and hold events such as the best cassoulet eater contest in Castelnaudary (won most recently by a 24-year-old named Jérémy who downed two kilos — four and a half pounds! — of cassoulet in 15 minutes).

This rivalry is so intense that the cities actually argue over how many times to break the crust that forms on the cassoulet while it is baking (seven times according to Castelnaudary, eight according to Toulouse). But the proof of the cassoulet is in the eating, and in fact I very much doubt that any diner in history, even in southwest France, has ever noticed how many times the chef punched into the crust.

So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty — how to make cassoulet. Despite all the mystique, preparation is simple. You soak the beans, simmer them with onion, carrot, garlic, herbs, bay leaf and a slab of bacon, brown the meats of your choice, layer the beans and meat into a baking dish (preferably earthenware) and bake for 90 minutes. This process took me four hours from start to finish, but I actually spent only an hour or so in the kitchen.

Cassoulet is one of the few grand classics of French cuisine that I had not yet posted on this site, the main reason being the difficulty of obtaining the ingredients if one does not live in France. But I believe I’ve found a way to make cassoulet accessible to home cooks everywhere, thanks in part to the online availability of French products these days.

The recipe I’m posting today contains all of the various meats — you can choose which to include or not — and is closest to the Toulouse version. A key ingredient is saucisse de Toulouse, which resembles Italian sausage minus the fennel and spicing. The nearest American equivalent is probably Wisconsin-style bratwurst. Chipolata sausages, while thinner, also resemble saucisse de Toulouse.

Another key ingredient is duck confit (pronounced cone-FEE). Widely available in France, this may be purchased online elsewhere — or you can make the confit yourself, using this recipe. (You’ll need to plan ahead, however, as making confit is a two-day process.)

An advantage of including confit in your cassoulet is that the smooth white fat clinging to the preserved duck will melt as you brown it, providing a source of duck fat for browning the other meats and for spooning over the dish just before it goes into the oven. You can also purchase duck fat online or, in a pinch, substitute olive oil.

Some non-French food writers propose more extreme substitutes, such as chicken instead of duck. My advice? Don’t go there. It wouldn’t be authentic. Julia Child, whose cassoulet recipe (dismissively titled ‘French baked beans’) covers seven pages in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, skirts the ingredients issue by leaving out the confit and sausage entirely, although she does mention them in her section on regional variations.

To sum up, making cassoulet takes time, it may be hard to obtain the ingredients and it’s not exactly diet food. So why bother? Given all of the above, what explains the popularity of this dish in France, where it regularly figures on lists of the country’s ten favorite foods?

I think that part of its appeal is the terroir aspect. Like Proust’s madeleine, cassoulet summons up memories of the past, a nostalgia for simpler times when farming households worked the local land and brought its bounty to the table. It’s a dish that seems to say, this is the real France, la France profonde (deep France), where each region has its own distinct cuisine, untouched by globalization and far superior to supermarket food.

But there’s another reason for cassoulet’s huge popularity — it’s just plain delicious.

It’s true that making cassoulet is a bit of a production. Think of it as an adventure, with a pot of golden beans at the end. With the holidays approaching, this is a good time to check out the recipe and gather the ingredients. You’ll be all set to head to the kitchen, put on your apron and create a beautiful, festive dish for Christmas, Hanukah or the New Year.

Happy cooking.