This recipe from Gourmet for a vegetarian cassoulet (a hearty casual french stew-like dish traditionally compromised of meats and/or sausage and white beans cooked to delicious oblivion and topped with breadcrumbs) was recently featured on the kitchn, where it caught my eye. I was fresh out of my first night of French cooking classes, and but 6 words into the recipe's description was a new word I had learned only that night. I looked at the word and felt such pride in myself. Mirapoix! I know what that is! How sophisticated it sounds; how french!
There was yet another draw to this recipe for me, besides its french name, simple ingredient list, and use of the word "mirapoix" in the description: this was likely to be a dirt cheap meal. And I am the kind of girl who really appreciates a cheap meal. Does that sound bad? Well, it's true. My trip to the grocery store for the ingredients for this meal totaled at $6 (at Whole Foods, even!). I will likely be eating this for lunch for a week. Time to pat myself on the back for being so frugal.
I made a few changes to the recipe as I cooked. First, though leeks may just be my favorite vegetable, I replaced them with onions to keep my costs low. I prefer to cook instinctively: taste and add and taste and add, rather than actually sticking to a recipe. In this way I ended up adding butter, a couple tablespoons of red wine, rosemary, and chicken stock (oops, no longer vegetarian! oh well.). I made the bread crumbs using 2 types of bread I had on hand: 7 grain sandwich bread, and some of the spinach-herb bread I made earlier in the week.
What comfort food this is, a hot garlicky stew with tender cooked onion, carrot and celery (that's the mirapoix, by the way) fresh and dried herbs and white beans. It is filling and hearty, yet gives a person the distinct feeling that they are eating something healthful and nutritious. My final product used quite a lot of butter, so I knew that the sense of healthfulness from the vegetables and white beans was certainly a ruse (not to be confused with a roux, if we are talking basics of french cooking).
Meatless* Cassoulet
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine's Vegetarian Cassoulet, from the March 2008 Issue
Ingredients for the Cassoulet:
1 enormous onion (truly, it was huge. I would call it 1.5 medium/large onions)
4 medium carrots, peeled, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch-wide pieces
4 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch dice
4 garlic cloves, chopped
olive oil and/or butter as needed
4 medium carrots, peeled, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch-wide pieces
4 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch dice
4 garlic cloves, chopped
olive oil and/or butter as needed
2 TBS dry red wine
3 thyme sprigs
2 parsley sprigs
2 parsley sprigs
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried marjoram
1 bay leaf
3 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
3 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups chicken broth
Salt & Pepper to taste
Ingredients for the breadcrumbs :
4 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
Proccess:
First prepare the bread crumbs. I made mine using the same method demonstrated by the chef who taught the gluten free cooking workshop I attended. Here, I replicated that process, but used ordinary glutenous bread, and also infused the olive oil with a few cloves of garlic first.
- Cut your bread slices into 1 inch squares and lay out evenly over a baking sheet.
- Heat in a hot oven for 15 minutes, or until they begin to get dried out and golden on the edges.
- pulse roughly in a food processor and combine with a tablespoon or so of olive oil (infused, as I mentioned above) herbs of your choice, and salt and pepper. I also added melted butter, but in the end did not think this was necessary. I admit it... I went a bit butter-crazy (not to be confused with Buttersafe).
- Return to the baking sheet, and heat again in the oven for 15 more minutes, until crisp
- Dice the onions, carrots, celery and garlic.
- Heat 1 TBS butter in a large heavy bottomed pan
- Add in the onions, cook until translucent
- Add the garlic, carrots and celery, cook about 10 minutes before adding Bay leaf and other herbs
- Continue to cook the mirapoix (!!) until carrots are just barely soft.
- Add red wine if you wish (I also added more butter...)
- Add the beans and stock
- Season to taste
- Cook until carrots are cooked through
- Top with breadcrumbs and a drizzle of olive oil and serve
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