Simmering, complex stews that take hours to prepare may sound daunting to the home cook, but they are well worth the effort to achieve a remarkable depth of flavor—case in point: the rustic, French-country party dish, cassoulet.
Variations of this decadent dish abound, but first and foremost include equal parts beans, vegetables, and meats.
“Cassoulets can be prepared freestyle with any meats,” says chef Jonathan Shearman of Fyr & Salt, a wood-fired private dining and catering business he owns with partner chef Max Mohrmann. “It can be ham, sausage, turkey or chicken, but we prefer making it with duck confit.”
Catered events by Fyr & Salt are somewhat of a ‘dinner and a show’ experience for guests as the meal is prepared over open flames and in a mobile, wood-fired oven. At a recent private soirée held at the picturesque Brick Cove Marina in Greenport, the menu included fig puff pastry, roasted oysters, sourdough bruschetta with ricotta and coal-roasted butternut squash, and, of course, this crowd-pleasing cassoulet.
“Not only is it easy to make, I think it’s a great dish for large gatherings,” says Mohrmann of the rustic casserole made with Crescent Farm ducks. “The duck and the beans take a little while to make, so prepare both things two days ahead. On the third day, make the cassoulet, put it in a casserole dish, and leave it in the fridge overnight so the flavors blend. The next day, pull it out, put it in the oven, and it’s ready to go.”‘
What makes this dish sing? Indeed, the finishing topping of toasted breadcrumbs made with sourdough from Fyr and Salt’s café at 8 Hands Farm in Southold.
“We’re making at least 200 loaves a day at the cafe,” says Mohrmann of the Southold-based venture he and Shearman joined in January that offers prepared foods, sandwiches, humanely raised meats (including the bacon used in this dish), and vegetables grown on the farm. “If we have a couple of sourdough loaves left at the end of the day, we use it for croutons or breadcrumbs for meatballs or stuffing.”
While most of us don’t have a wood-fired oven on wheels to make duck skin cracklings, it may be worth testing your oven’s broiler to add the ultimate finishing touch to this hearty meat and bean stew.
Photos by Doug Young
“After going through and removing the meat from the duck legs, we save all the skins because they’re soft,” explains Shearman. “In a cast iron pan, we let it go low and slow in the wood oven, dumping the fat and turning it into little cracklings. It’s super tasty on top of the cassoulet.”
Let you and your friends decide as you serve this Languedoc region-inspired home-cooked meal alongside a well-balanced North Fork red, such as the 2021 Macari Syrah or the 2019 Pindar Syrah (which won gold at the New York Wine Classic competition). Salut!
Fyr & Salt duck cassoulet
Ingredients
To cook the beans
- 1 lb organic Great Northern beans, or your favorite white bean, soaked overnight
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 shallot, sliced in half lengthwise
- 1 head garlic, peeled and slightly cracked
- handful of salt and a few peppercorns
- any herb stems, leaves stripped
To cure and confit the duck
- 2 Crescent Farms duck legs
- 1/4 cup salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 4 juniper berries
- 4 sprigs thyme, leaves pulled from stems
- small palm-full whole black peppercorns
- 2 whole clove
- 3 star anise
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup brandy
For the cassoulet
- 3/4 slab 8 Hands Farm bacon, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
- 1 yellow onion, small dice
- 3 stalks celery, small dice
- 2 large carrots, cut in half lengthwise and sliced thinly
- 2 heads garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup white wine (Bedell Viognier)
- 1/4 cup brandy
- 4 sprigs rosemary
- 10 sprigs thyme
- 2 to 3 qts duck stock (chicken is fine as well), brought to a boil
- 2 bay leaves
- Champagne or apple cider vinegar, to season
- 1 cup sour dough breadcrumbs, toasted with olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp chopped scallion, white parts only
Directions
To cure the duck
- Mix salt, sugar, juniper, thyme, and peppercorns in a small bowl. Cover duck legs with the seasoning and let them cure in the fridge overnight.
Make the beans
- Simmer beans in 3 times the amount of water as beans with bay leaf, shallot, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs. Cook until tender, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Strain and cool. This can also be done the day before.
- In an oven safe dish, put the cured duck legs skin side up in the oven at 250 F, covered, for 3-4 hrs until tender and falling off the bone. Remove from liquid / duck fat and cool.
- Render diced bacon on low until crispy and you have lots of bacon fat in the pan. Strain out the bacon and set aside.
- Turn heat up to medium high and cook onion and celery in bacon fat until translucent, then add carrots and garlic a cook until golden.
- Deglaze pan with brandy and white wine.
- Add bacon, beans, herbs, duck or chicken stock, salt, pepper and bay leaves.
- Bring to a simmer and put in the oven at 375 F, uncovered, until some beans break down and create a creamy broth, about 2-3 hours. Beans should be very tender.
- In the meantime, pull the duck off the bones and leave in chunks; it is okay for some to be smaller shreds. (Optional: Reserve duck fat and skin to crisp up under the broiler and sprinkle on top as cracklings at end.) Add liquid as needed.
- When the beans are just about done, mix in the duck and cook for 10 more minutes.
- Take the beans out, season to taste with vinegar, salt, and pepper.
- Turn oven to broil, top beans with breadcrumbs and cook until brown.
- Sprinkle with duck skin cracklings (optional but encouraged) and chopped scallion.
- Serve immediately and don’t forget to remove the bay leaves!
