Cassoulet Recipe

Submitted by Tadpole

Ingredients:

• ¾ lb belly pork, cut in to three strips and then cut each strip into three (cut roughly from the rib bones but remember to include the bones inthe cooking)
• 6 large sausages,  cut in half or thirds depending on size  (I favour strongly flavoured sausages like boar as they provide most of the flavourfor the dish)
• 4 large chicken thighs cut in half
• 1 large onion
• 1 large potato
• 1 large carrot
• 2 bay leaves
• Small handful of fresh parsley
• Salt and  pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic or a teaspoon of minced garlic
• Either a pound of dried haricot bean that have been soaked over night in fresh water or two tins of (beans of your choice) I use chickpeas and red kidney beans.
• 2 pints of good stock  (chicken or vegetable)

Method:

1. In a heavy cast iron Casserole, or Dutch oven on the top of the stove, fry the belly pork until the fat is crispy, remove and drain, next fry the sausages until coloured, drain most of the fat, add the chicken (with orwithout the skin, I normally take off the skin) and cook until coloured.
2. Remove meat and add the garlic and the finely chopped onion fry until theonion is translucent but not brown, add the belly pork and the sausage,and the stock.
3. Bring back to a rolling simmer, and then add the chicken, the beans and the roughly chopped vegetables along with the two bay leaves.
4. Place in the middle a medium oven gas (mark 5)  with a heavy lid cook for two hours,  remove,  taste,  season, and add the parsley.
5. Cover with a round of bakers' parchment and cook for ¾ of an hour or until the stock has reduced to made a fine gravy.
6. Serve with thick wholemeal bread or rice.

Serves 8 - 10 on its own or 12 -16 with rice

The last time I made this, the cost worked out to be roughly 35p per meal.