I watched a couple of YouTube videos that made me want to make the famous French dish, cassoulet. However, I don’t want it to take 10 hours, like it did for this guy. And even this recipe that takes 3 to 4 hours is asking too much.
I’m going to make some French people upset.
To save time I didn’t bother draining the beans and reserving the liquid that would eventually be used anyway. I also didn’t make any herb satchels.
Now I could be like one of those annoying blog recipes that tells some boring story and gives life advice before the recipe, but I think the previous three paragraphs was enough torture. As with any recipe be sure to read all the way through before attempting. If you don’t do this you’ll be sorry!
STEP ONE
Get stuff. Like the stuff I have here. Not pictured are butter and herbs. You’ll want those. Also, I got way too much Italian parsley and it wilted overnight in the fridge. If this happens to you just spread it out on a towel to dry it for future use, or to forget about in the cupboard.
STEP TWO
Put your bacon in the oven and start cooking them beans. Yes, cook the bacon first unless you are a fan of floppy bacon fat in your beans. I ended up needing both cartons of stock and I only ended up using the salt for the veggies. I used thyme and Italian seasoning in the broth, but you can do what you want. In retrospect I should have used some paprika for color.
STEP THREE
I seared the pork loin in some bacon grease and stuck that bad boy in the pot to finish cooking. And I say boy because it appears to have a little benis.
STEP FOUR
I fully cooked the sweet Italian sausage, cut into quarters, and then took a blurry action shot of me adding it to the pot.
STEP FIVE
As you can see, my stove is getting pretty messy at this point. Things are getting serious. So while you were waiting for those sausages to cook you should have been cutting up your veggies, including the garlic and shallots. You then want to cook them in the same pan you used for the meats. I hope you didn’t clean this pan out at any time. That would have been a mistake. You want that yummy animal fat for your veggies. I can’t eat tomatoes, but if you can you should add tomato paste at this point. You’ll want to cook all the veggies until they start to carmelize.
There was a leftover summer party beer in the fridge that no one in this household will ever drink so I used it to deglaze the vegetables. I then had a lot of beer so I just dumped it into the pot. Why not? Let the veggies simmer until the liquid cooks off and then add them to the pot.
STEP SIX
While I was waiting on the veggies I remembered that I had a heap of bacon so I crumbled it up and threw it into the pot. As you can see I also cut up the cooked pork loin and stuck it back in.
STEP SEVEN
The veggies used up all the fat that was in the pan. So I added some bacon grease and butter and then toasted some bread crumbs in that. This will be sprinkled on top of the end product to simulate the crust that you would get on a traditional baked cassoulet.
STEP EIGHT
So now we have everything in the pot, but it looks like soup. We don’t want soup. So we’re going to add bread crumbs a bit at a time until it thickens up. You can also add your fresh Italian parsley at this time.
Once that’s done you can take a literal steamy picture of your pork and beans that no longer looks like soup. Let it cook for a bit so it can do all that good stuff that letting it cook for a bit does.
FINAL STEP!
Finally you can plate up your pork and beans, sprinkle on your toasty bread crumbs and take it outside to photograph it. Oh, and you can eat it if you want.
