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Cassoulet
was probably the first French dishes that really hooked me on French
cuisine. I was working at Chez Panisse
at the time and when the new Zinfandel wine was released, in a style
similar to the annual release of Beaujolais nouveau in France, or the
garlic festival on Bastille Day (called 14 juillet, in France – if you
called it “Bastille Day,” no one would know what you were talking
about), the cooks would often make cassoulet. Because I was working and
making dessert, I didn’t have time to actually sit down and eat any –
because customers don’t really want to hear that their dessert is being
held up because the pastry person is sitting down having dinner – I did
get to take a spoon and scrape off, and eat, all the crusty, meaty,
chewy bits that were stuck to the rims of the pans. Which, of course,
are the best parts.
Making
cassoulet is definitely a project. I know, because when I put the
recipe in My Paris
Kitchen, I made it at least a dozen times, testing all kinds
of meats and beans, and playing around with cooking times. (And trying
to explain – nicely – that once you’ve made cassoulet, that it’s
actually better réchauffé,
or left to sit overnight, then reheated.)
 And
if you’re going to make it, you make it in quantity, as it’s not a dish
you’ll find in one of those “Cooking for One” or “Dinner in 5!”
cookbooks. You need to gather the meats, fry up the sausages, prepare
the beans, and cook the whole thing for several hours.
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