Here There and Everywhere

Slow Cooker Cassoulet

When I first saw this recipe on allrecipes.com I thought “this isn’t right! Where’s all the fat?” Cassoulets we have eaten in the high plateau central southwest part of France had duck in them, and goose fat, and some mutton, maybe a little pork. They have elaborate rituals, where you boil it in a large enamel pot for hours, then bake it, pulling it out now and then to break and stir in the crust that forms, baking again, breaking the crust, for hours. Cassoulet is a ritual, not just a dish.

But I saved the recipe, because our son and daughter-in-law have gotten us intrigued with slow cooker cooking, and this week, I gave it a try:

The hardest part of this recipe is finding cannelini beans. After I finally found dried beans (at the Four Winds International Grocery at 9th and Creighton) I actually found canned cannelini at WalMart. (I know! Whoda thunk?) I wanted to go ahead and try it with the dried beans, so I soaked them overnight, cooked them, and then went ahead with the following recipe:

Cassoulet Slow Cooker

Cover, set the cooker to Low, and cook until the chicken is very tender and the cassoulet is thickened, 5 to 6 hours.

This recipe perfumed the house with rich aromas. We could hardly wait to eat. Such simple ingredients, so easy to fix! Toward the end, I had to add a little more wine and I also added about a teaspoon of Herbes de Provence. If you live in Kuwait or Qatar, or don’t use alcohol in your cooking, you can substitute chicken broth for the wine, or an unsweet grape juice, or one of the non-alcoholic wines available in some supermarkets.

Here’s how it looked close up, shortly before serving. 🙂 Hope you try it, hope you like it. 🙂

May 14, 2010 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Cooking, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Food, Living Conditions, Local Lore