The Anonymous Widower

Cassoulet

Today was my housewarming party, so I cooked a gluten-free cassoulet in a big Le Creuset casserole.

I’ve always liked cassoulet and in the past, I’ve even eaten one cooked by a Michelin-starred chef.  This was the second time I’d used this recipe which is based on one from Michele Barriemore-Johnson’s Everyday Wheat-Free and Gluten-Free Cookbook, which is really the only cookery book, I use these days.  I’m not sure, if the book is still in print, as it was first published in 1998.  The author, now runs a comprehensive free-from food site called foodsmatter.com.

The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve from ten to twelve.

• 500 g dried haricot beans – one pack in Waitrose
• 8 rashers of streaky bacon – One pack in Waitrose
• 4 carrots, scrubbed and skiced – I actually chopped them into sticks about 5 centimetres long and then quartered-them lengthwise, as I found this easier with my gammy hand.
• 4 onions stuck with between about eight and ten cloves each – Surprisingly, I didn’t find this too difficult, but I did make a small cut in the onions with the point of a knife and the cloves were newly bought.
• 3 large onions roughly chopped – Effectively, I just peeled them and cut them into small chunks.
• 6 cloves garlic, halved – I find peeling garlic difficult, but this was easier than crushing them.
• 20 or so peppercorns and salt
• 50g butter
• 2 Bath Pig chorizo sausages with garlic and herbs. I was recommended by and purchased these from the de Beauvoir Deli.  You have to dice it for the recipe.
• 1 Kg of lamb, trimmed of fat and cubed – The original recipe recommended leg or shoulder, but the butcher in Waitrose recommended using some neck cuts. Both these and the chorizo worked well.
• a tube of tomato puree.
• 500 g of chicken stock.  I diluted it a bit with a small amount of water.
• 4 slices of gluten-free bread – I used Genius, as I had a loaf handy. 
• 4 tbsp of whole grain mustard – Check it’s gluten-free.

The method is as follows.

1. Soak the beans in cold water for a minimum of four hours.  I did it overnight.
2. Drain the beans and discard the water.  This isn’t quite as easy as it should be, as the beans soak up a load of the water.  In the end I used a saucepan with a strainer built into the lid to get rid of the excess water, but it might have been better to soak the beans in the saucepan in the first place.
3. Line a big casserole with the bacon rashers.
4. In a bowl mix together the beans, carrots, the onions stuck with cloves, half the garlic and the peppercorns and salt.
5. Spoon the mixture into the pot with the bacon, just cover it with water and bake it with the lid on at 160 degrees for 2 hours. 
6. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a heavy-based pan and brown the garlic sausage and the lamb.  Stir in the chopped onion, the rest of the garlic, the tomato puree and the stock.
7. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
8. Turn the mixture into the bean pot, stir all well together and return to the over for another 30 minutes. Taste and season as required.
9. Spread the bread with mustard.  Lay on top of the casserole, mustard side up and push them down, so that the bottom of each slice absorbs the juices.  Return to the over for 20-25 minutes to heat and crisp the topping.

I served it with some green vegetables, but everybody just took lots of beans.

There was enough left over to make three small individual meals, which I froze.

January 16, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Food | Coeliac/Gluten-Free, Lamb