Cassoulet Final Assembly

It's been over a week that the cassoulet ingredients have been getting themselves prepared for assembly into the final casserole. There is one last step before final assembly.

In this pot is the strained wine marinade from the meat, duck stock, cooked beans, a chopped head of garlic, chopped tomatoes, diced carrots and onion. Also included is chopped pancetta that has been sautéed in duck fat. The next step is to bury the pork belly and pork skin roll and simmer for a couple of hours.

Some week or two later, it is time to assemble the casserole. After coating the inside of the casserole (the orange thing) with duck fat, the cooked down contents of the silver pot are transferred into the casserole. In this picture, the big silver pot is filled with duck fat.

The plastic bags are the prepared meats cut to bite sized pieces. The duck legs go in whole. Duck fat is on standby for use as needed or desired. One cannot have too much duck fat in cassoulet.

Add the duck legs and the three chopped up pork meats.

In this bowl are panko, bread crumbs, fresh garlic and Italian parsley. It is sprinkled on top of the assembled cassoulet and drizzled with duck fat to form the crust.

The casserole is baked for nearly two hours. Before long it will come out of the oven. Stay tuned for the magnificent cassoulet casserole.