He ordered the chorizo and eggs, which was good,
but he noted nutmeg in the sausage spicing! I took
a taste and decided that there was also cinnamon
and allspice, so the sausage tasted like British
Isles black pudding more than any kind of chorizo
I've ever encountered. It was also reminisceht of
the blood sausage dessert that Antonio Vigario had
introduced me to almost a quarter century ago in
Lisbon.
I had black pudding in Ireland, and I cannot imagine any sausage tasting anything like that abomination.
I've liked most version of it that I can recall.
Is your objection the spicing, the fattiness,
the bloodiness, or the stickiness, or perhaps
some of each? Now that I think of it, there
have been blood sausages that didn't really
appeal to me - the ones thickened with too
much starch or sometimes even whole grains.
Title: Cassoulet
2 lb Oscar Mayer Ground Pork
-Sausage
If you're dying for cassoulet and in a hurry,
this might be okay, but ground sausage here is
a strange thing, when Oscar Mayer and others
make perfectly good other kinds of sausage.
1 lb Can kidney beans, drained
1 lb Can white beans, drained
1 lb Can sliced carrots, drained
Does anyone use canned carrots any more? That's
a lot of them, and they don't really belong,
especially in that quantity. Personally, I would
use carrot as an accent if anything in such a
dish. Anyhow, how about a compromise - maybe half
a pound of fresh-cut carrots (takes about 2 minutes
to cut), nuked in water to cover until tender,
maybe 3 or 4 minutes.
1 lb Stewed tomatoes
1/8 ts Garlic powder OR
1 Garlic clove, minced
1 tb Dried parsley flakes
4 sl Oscar Mayer bacon
That's a bit much tomato for the dish - and a bit
too little garlic. I'd also say a longer slower
cook and a generous dusting of crumbs on top -
perhaps two or more dustings - would improve things.
I sometimes use a pound of smoked sausage such as Polish sausage and
cut it into thin slices. Omit the browning step and just combine all
the ingredients and bake. I also leave off the bacon when I do this.
Has been a favorite here for years.
From: Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook)
From: Skeeter <prissb@kynd.Net> Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 23:01:09
Good for Skeeter - substituting cooked sausage for
half the ground would improve things a fair amount.
So would adding some poultry product - maybe a
couple chicken drummers if you can't find duck confit.
I am not sure if Elizabeth David means loose sausage
in the following recipe; I probably would use some
kind of link or rope sausage -
MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06
Title: Le Cassoulet De Castelnaudary
Categories: French, Beans, Casseroles, Goose, Sausage, Castelnaudry
Yield: 8 Servings
2 lb Medium sized white haricot
Beans
1 Wing and a leg of preserved
Goose or
1/2 Fresh goose
1 lb Coarse pork sausage
1/2 lb Bacon
3 Onions
4 Cloves garlic
2 Tomatoes
2 pt Meat stock
Cassoulet, a wonderful dish of south-western France, which through the
years has been raised from the status of a humble peasant dish to one
of the glories of French cooking. Toulouse, Carcassonne, Porigord,
Castelnaudary, Gascony, Castannau, all have their own versions of the
Cassoulet. The ingredients vary from fresh pork and mutton to smoked
sausages, garlic sausages, bacon, smoked pork and pigs' cheek. The
essentials are good white haricot beans and a capacious earthenware
pot (the name Cassoulet comes from Cassol D'Issel, the original clay
cooking utensil from the little town of Issel, near Castelnaudary).
Put the beans to soak overnight; next day put them into fresh water
and cook for about 2 1/2 hours, keeping them just on the boil, until
they are three-quarters cooked, then strain them.
In the meantime prepare the stock in which they are to finish cooking.
Slice the onions and cut the bacon into squares and melt them together
in a pan, add the crushed garlic, the tomatoes, seasoning and herbs,
and pour over the stock and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Take the
pieces of goose out of their pot with the good lard adhering to them.
(If you are using fresh goose, it must be half roasted; have some good
pork or goose dripping as well.)
Put the goose, the dripping, the sausage, and the bacon from the
stock, at the bottom of the earthenware pot, which has been well
rubbed with garlic, and the beans on the top. Add the prepared stock.
Bring the _Cassoulet_ slowly to the boil, then spread a layer of
breadcrumbs on the top and put the pot into a slow oven and leave it
until the beans are cooked. This will take about 1 hour, during which
time most of the stock will be absorbed and a crust will have formed
on the top of the beans.
Serve it exactly as is; a good young red wine should be drunk with
this dish; a salad and a country cheese of some kind to finish will be
all you need afterwards.
Duck can be used instead of goose, and at Christmas time the legs or
wings of turkey go very well into the Cassoulet.
A recipe of the Castelnaudary version using confit - and tomatoes! -
from Elizabeth David's 'French Country Cooking'.
From: Victor Sack, Duesseldorf
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