Passport & Plate - Golden Prairie Cassoulet
Canada | Tuesday, March 3, 2015 | 5 photos
Stewed Boar Heart:
1 wild boar heart
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1-2 cups dark beer
Wild Boar Sausage:
1 pound ground wild boar meat
1/2 cup boar fat or lard
1 finely chopped onion
1 tbsp crushed dried hot peppers
1 tsp rosemary
Beans:
2-3 cups dried beans (I used a mixture of brown beans and the more traditional small white beans)
Homemade vegetable stock
Bread Crumb topping:
1-2 cups of bread crumbs from stale whole-grain bread
A few tablespoons of oil, butter, or melted boar fat
Large handful of chopped fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
Note - Substitutions are encouraged! This dish should reflect the place where you live, so please use the ingredients that are available to you locally. Further thoughts about substitutions:
- Although you can use any cut of stewing meat from any animal, heart imparts an indescribably rich, meaty flavour. Dishes like this are a great way to experiment with cuts and organs you might not want to eat on their own.
- Red wine is infinitely more traditional than beer in French cuisine. I chose beer because I live in grain-growing region, not a grape-growing one – your choice will affect the final flavour, but either works beautifully. Be careful the beer you use isn't too bitter, as the cooking process will intensify its flavours.
- If you don't have home-made stock, please DO NOT substitute by using instant commercial bullion cubes or similar short-cuts. Using real vegetables adds both amazing flavour and nutrition, and you can essentially make a stock along with beans as they cook by adding herbs and vegetables to the water, although you may have to fish them out afterwards. Try any of the following: whole cloves of garlic, chunks of carrot, celery, onion, parsley stems, bay leaves, sundried tomatoes.
You can also make a rich stock with the trim from the heart.
Stewed Boar Heart:
1. Carefully trim the heart, removing any white stringy connective tissue. This can be finicky, so don't worry if you lose a bit of the muscle.
2. Cut the heart into bite-size chunks.
3. In a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat, brown the heart pieces on all sides.
4. Add the vegetables and brown them as well.
5. Reduce heat. Add enough beer to cover the meat and vegetables by about an inch. Simmer for at least 2 hours while you continue with the other components of the cassoulet.
Beans:
1. In a pot, add enough stock to pre-soaked, drained beans to cover them by a few inches . Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until beans are tender and creamy but still hold their shape. This could take anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, depending on the variety of beans and their age.
2. Season to taste – although they'll take on the flavours of everything else in the cassoulet, they should taste good on their own.
Wild Boar Sausage:
1. Combine the ground boar, boar fat/lard, onions, and seasonings in a bowl and mix well.
2. Form the mixture into golf-ball sized balls. Flatten into disks in a skillet over medium heat, browning both sides thoroughly.
3. Deglaze the pan with a splash of beer or wine, adding it to the cassoulet.
Assembling and baking the cassoulet:
1. In a large casserole dish or oven-safe pot, mix half of the beans with half of the stewed heart, including the some of the cooking liquids from each.
2. Arrange half the sausages across the surface of the bean mixture.
3. Repeat layers – if you are using a deep dish, you might want to use 3 layers of beans and sausage instead of 2.
4. The juices should come up to the middle of the final layer of sausage patties without submerging them. If it doesn't, add more.
5. Mix the bread crumb topping ingredients together and top the cassoulet with a generous layer.
6. Bake in a moderate over (300) for at least an hour
7. Allow to rest for 30 minutes to finish melding flavours and set juices.
About the recipe:
This recipe grew out of memories of sun-drenched October afternoons in the south of France, harvesting gorgeously speckled borlotti beans for the night's supper and for the winter ahead. This is where I learned how truly delicious beans could be, and where I first encountered the living expression of my conviction that we can make the world better through the food we grow and eat in the places we live.
The cookbook from which I took the outline for this recipe was a gift from a sweet French couple, eager to share the food of their home with a woman who shared her home with them. It is a treasured souvenir from one of dozens of dinners with Couchsurfing guests in my Saskatchewan kitchen - meeting points of food, culture, and human souls in which I experience the world by inviting it to my table.
Although cassoulet (along with my inspiration) comes from France, my version of it is very much an expression of the prairie province in which I live. I took the name Golden Prairie from a friend's farm, which produces the wild boar I used, as it is so evocative of the place we make our home. In the early autumn, the seemingly endless fields shine with the golden tassels of mature grain, rippling and shimmering in the sun and wind. Our lives are intimately tied to this land, and even in the depths of our bitter winters, when cassoulet is best served, we are blessed with a wealth of locally-grown food - like the Grandma Nelly's pole beans from my garden (a heritage variety that carries a deep history as well as my own grandmother's name) I used the first time I made this dish.
At its heart, this recipe is about taking the humblest ingredients – a handful of dried beans, a lowly cut of meat, some vegetable scraps – and turning them into something transcendent. It is a celebration of slow food, of the way the transformative power of time, so like the transformative power of travel, teaches us to live with wonder and gratitude for what we have and where we are.
About me:
I truly believe cooking is at the heart of what it means to be human, and that eating is the most important link between us and the world we live in. My approach to food is one that celebrates this relationship – that draws inspiration from the place I live, respects the health of the environment, and explores the wisdom and delight embedded in food traditions from around the world. This philosophy informs every aspect of my life – I garden joyfully each summer and preserve food each fall, cook with passion and entertain guests often, brew beer and mead, base my travels around eating, read extensively about food, forage for edible wild plants, and write about it all on my blog.
I would bring passion and gratitude to Sri Lanka, eager to experience the foodways of a country characterized in part by the spices and teas that enliven my otherwise locally sourced diet – beautifully evocative, invaluable luxuries. Sri Lanka has a unique and compelling story to tell through its cookery, with multiple threads of settlement, colonialism, and resistance woven into its cultural fabric. I would delve wholeheartedly into sharing this story, celebrating the people and the land embodied in food. The child of a country that exists because of the same Empire-building project that took advantage of Sri Lanka for centuries, to travel there to participate in a cuisine of such remarkable diversity and endurance would help me understand the history that ties all our lives (and our kitchens) together.
