The winter chill makes me want to make and eat stews.
Every part of the process is a winter wonderland for me, from planning a stew based on winter produce and local meats at the market, to the
meditative process of cutting up root vegetables and aromatics, to the
deliriously sexy aromas that waft as meats brown, flavors meld in a simmering
pot, and time and heat turn earlier efforts into a stew-y ambrosia.
So it's no surprise that I’ve had in mind the idea of a cassoulet. If you’re not familiar, it’s a
French stew of white beans and meat. Of course there are as many variations as there
are cooks and families who pass around recipes. I don’t have a handed-down
recipe, but I have a trove of resources in many treasured cookbooks and memories of versions made in the past with and for friends. That little inkling in the back of my mind met perfect inspiration in my annual pilgrimage to Mr. K's Bookstore. Every Christmas, dear framily comes to Asheville, and among many
traditions (light show, Chocolate Lounge, playing games into the night…), I
think the most loved is breakfast at J&S Cafeteria followed by a leisurely
hang out at Mr. K’s Bookstore, conveniently located next door.
Sometimes it’s just one little thing that brings a book home,
and I need only see the title to know it will end up on my shelf. When I first found “Hallelujah! The Welcome Table”, by
Maya Angelou, I thought it was mis-placed in the cookbook section,
until I read the rest of the cover to find “A lifetime of memories with recipes”
below the title. A book of stories by a master story-teller, with recipes? Sold. And then, leafing through, I found what would be my first recipe and perhaps the real reason to buy the book: so I might attempt to make the Cassoulet that Maya Angelou made for M.F.K. Fisher (as one does).
And now, Plan B:
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| Making ingredient and amount notes. |
Even when I plan to follow a recipe to the letter, I always seem to alter it in some way. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of taste habit. I do love to try recipes as written, to see if I can get that intended/described result, but I also see most recipes (excluding pastries and those other baking recipes that require more adherence to measurements) as guidelines, and I approach them as such.
I think if I had not been planning for a lazy day off of cooking, I'd try her recipe as written, and I plan to do that another time, but I love slow roasting meats, and usually turn those leftovers into a stew, so I knew that I would be taking one major step that differed from her recipe. So while I may take a few detours, I would use her recipe as my guide to reach the same destination. I had planned to use her ingredients as my guide as well. I had a good bit of what she listed in my larder and freezer, so I really only wanted to pick up a few things. Unfortunately, I left my last minute shopping to...the last minute. And the last minute was thwarted by an unexpected sleet storm that sent me home from the studio early, but not early enough to avoid the black-ice-laden roads, so rather than create an epic adventure to the grocery that more likely have me stranded on the road instead of home planning a tasty stew, I made my way home. Slowly. And today, I'm actually getting to do something else I love, and that's 'punt'. I have my guideline recipe, I have a variety of ingredients, and I have all day to play in the kitchen. In jammies. Oh glorious day off, what a great way to start the year!
So as to my recipe - not really providing a recipe here of my day's puttering about, as it's an accumulation of many things, and well I just forgot to take measurements and notes once I got things going (did I mention - day off?). But if you've been reading this far (Happy New Year, and thanks!), I will give you a bit of an overview on the 'parts' of what I did. I'm also taking part in the #cook90 challenge, so everything done was done with future meals in mind, as well.
Cassoulet, the Players:
The Lamb:
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Remaining lamb shank, ready to
become other dishes. |
1.9# lamb shank, rubbed with olive oil, salt, pepper, ground coriander, and cinnamon and placed in a roasting pan, then sprinkled with all the remaining dried thyme from my spring garden. Roasted at 450 for 20 minutes, then (after removing a bit of excess fat), covered tightly with foil and lid and roasted at 325 for about 2 hours, with added smashed garlic. I was so distracted by the amazing sight, sound, and smell of the lamb when it came out of the oven that I forgot all about taking pictures. I used about 1/3 of the shank for my stew. Remaining meat will be something else soon, and the bone will base a new soup stock this week.
The Pork:
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| Aromatics sizzle with sausage. |
I'm cooking this as in Maya Angelou's recipe, which is to brown cubes of boneless pork in duck fat on all sides before adding it to the bean mix, and then do the same treatment with onions, leeks, fennel bulb, celery, and sausage before adding to the beans.
The Beans:
I soaked white beans overnight, in water and salt, and in the morning I added a clove-studded onion, celery, carrot, diced bacon, a bay leaf, 2 smashed cloves of garlic, and a tea infuser filled with dried parsley and thyme. I let that boil and simmer while I prepped the other aromatics, cut up the pork & sausage, and got the lamb in the oven. By the time I was browning the pork, the beans had been simmering about an hour. I removed the bay leaf, infuser, and oversized veg, and as I browned or saute-ed the pork, veg, and sausage, I added it to the beans. After that, I poured in some crushed tomatoes and the last of a bottle of white wine from the fridge.
I simmered all that until the lamb came out of the oven. After it sat for a few minutes, I carved off about a pound of meat, cut it into cubes, and added it to the stew. After a quick mix, the stew pot was transferred to a 325 oven for just under an hour.
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| 9 degrees windchill outside doesn't matter at all when you've got a steaming bowl of this stew! |
And then I had a winter-warming stew that I know will only get better each time it's heated!
