How to cook bean stew? What are the secrets and subtleties of cooking? TOP 5 most successful casoulet recipes. Video recipes.
Casule is a very hearty French meat dish. Historians claim that the recipe was created during the 14th century century war in France, when the common efforts of the townspeople gathered food to support the forces of the defenders of the besieged city. It is believed that the name of the dish came from the pottery “cassette” in which it was cooked. However, to this day, the disputes between the three provinces, claiming the title of the creator of the "true Kasule", do not subside. Therefore, it is generally believed that this wonderful stew has three versions: casoulet from Toulouse, casoulet from Costelnaudary and casoulet from Carcassonne. The famous chef Prosper Montane somehow very successfully formulated a statement that is now used everywhere: if Kasule is the god of Occitan cuisine, then the three types of God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and not destroyed. Whatever the truth, this recipe is unique in its own way and deserves a separate place in history and cookbooks.
Features of cooking casoulet
Any chef tries to add his own flavor to the prepared dish, based on the classic recipe. And in the case of casoulet in French, where cooking options change every two kilometers along the coast, there will be a lot of nuances. Stews, which are so substantial in the list of ingredients, have long ceased to be a daily food. Some options involve a preparatory phase of several days. But still, there are general rules of cooking, observing which anyone can enjoy the true taste of traditional French cuisine.
Casule cooking rules:
- To prepare this dish, you need to adhere to certain proportions of the ratio of the main ingredients. Meat should be at least 30%, and beans - 70%.
- The correct casule will only be obtained when stewing in a heat-resistant (earthenware) dish.
- Beans are best used fresh or dried and soaked in warm water the night before cooking.
- Confit is an obligatory ingredient in any casoulet - in fact, the same stew, but it would be more correct to use stewed goose or duck legs on your own. They are prepared in advance separately from the main course.
- In order to improve digestion when eating such a high-calorie meal, it is best served with red wine.
- When boiling meat, you need to periodically remove the top layer of broth, this will make the dish less greasy.
- If, during stewing, you notice that the top beans have begun to dry out, pour broth over them.
- In some cases, sprinkle the dish with ground white bread crumbs to create a delicious crispy crust before stewing.
TOP 5 recipes for casoulet
Such an extraordinary, but in its own way tasty and satisfying stew was enjoyed not only by the French. Over time, the casoulet recipe has progressed, changed, and now the dish can be on the table of any hostess, even in the most remote point of the planet from France. This article contains the most successful recipes for its implementation.
Kasule of Castelnaudary
This recipe is also called Kasule-Father. This is due to the resolution of the dispute about the true origin of the dish. As the name implies, it is this stew that is prepared in the Languedoc region, the commune of Castelnaudary. It cannot be whipped up, it needs to be cooked thoroughly. The dish is perfect for a family dinner. Original serving in earthenware will create a relaxed atmosphere and enhance the feeling of coziness.
- Caloric content per 100 g - 198 kcal.
- Servings - 6
- Cooking time - 16 hours
Ingredients:
- Pork - 300 g
- Duck legs - 4 pcs.
- Pork skin - 150-200 g
- Pork sausages (in natural casing) - 4 pcs.
- White beans - 300 g
- Bulb onions - 4 pcs.
- Carrots - 4 pcs.
- Garlic - 2 cloves
- Salt and spices to taste
How to prepare casoulet from Castelnaudary step by step:
- The beans must be pre-soaked for 12 hours in slightly salted water.
- Next, we begin to prepare the broth. To do this, wash the pork skin and pork thoroughly, cut it into thin slices and put it in a deep container, fill it with water. Bring to a boil, drain the water, then fill it with water again. It is better to take boiling water, so the meat will give less taste and aroma to the water. Add salt and spices, let it boil for 40 minutes over low heat. The broth must be filtered.
- Take the beans out of the water and add them to the strained broth and boil for about an hour. The beans should be soft, but not boiled.
- Duck legs must be thoroughly stewed in their own juice. To do this, they are washed with water, salted and placed in a well-heated frying pan, fried until golden brown, then the heat is reduced and covered with a lid. So the product should languish for about 30-40 minutes, periodically water the meat with its own juice or add a little water so that the skin does not become hard.
- Next, fry the already cooked pork and raw sausages in well-heated oil until golden brown. You do not need to fry the boiled skin.
- Cut the carrots and onions into small half rings, chop the garlic.
- The next step will be "picking up" the dish. Put the pork skin on the bottom of a heat-resistant container, on top a third of the beans, then meat and vegetables, again beans, then sausages and duck legs, then the rest of the beans.
- All this is poured with broth and sent to the oven for one hour.
Casule from Carcassonne
This is the second classic Kasule-Son recipe. Its main difference is the use of lamb. An extremely satisfying and very aromatic dish will delight guests and loved ones. Its preparation requires considerable costs and skills, but the result is worth all the expectations.
Ingredients:
- Lamb - 300 g
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Bulb onions - 1 pc.
- Green pepper - 1 pc.
- White bread rusks - 150 g
- Hard cheese - 100 g
- Red semi-dry wine - 1 glass
- White beans - 300 g
- Garlic - 1 clove
- Salt, pepper, paprika, sage and dill to taste
How to prepare casoulet from Carcassonne step by step:
- Soak the beans for 5-6 hours. Then boil in salted water until soft.
- Remove excess fat from lamb, cut into small pieces with a side of 2 cm, fry in a pan until golden brown.
- Cut carrots into half rings, pepper into squares similar to meat. Chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan. Pour a glass of wine there and stew everything together for 40 minutes.
- Grind rusks and mix with grated cheese.
- Put meat with vegetables in a baking container, add beans there, and cover everything with breadcrumbs.
- Bake in the oven at 160 degrees.
- You can serve in the same container as the dish was baked.
Casule with Toulouse sausages
Toulouse is one of the largest cultural centers in France. Along with its other features, tourists highlight a large number of assorted sausages. It is with Toulouse sausages that the peculiarity of the preparation of casoulet in this region is connected. If you are not lucky enough to get suitable sausages, you do not need to be upset, they are very easy to make yourself.
Ingredients:
- White young beans - 500 g
- Pork or lamb (you can combine two types) - 400 g
- Carrots - 3 pcs.
- Onions - 3 pcs.
- Sweet Bulgarian pepper - 2 pcs.
- Garlic - 2 cloves
- Goose fat - for frying
- Pork skin - 300 g
- Dill, rosemary, black pepper, bay leaf and salt to taste
- Pork neck for sausages - 1 kg
- Lard - 200 g
- Washed intestines - for sausages
Step-by-step preparation of casoulet with Toulouse sausages:
- First you need to prepare the sausages. To do this, grind 1 kg of pork, one onion and bacon in a meat grinder, add salt and spices to taste, mix thoroughly and fill the intestine with a special nozzle.
- Pre-soak the beans, then boil them in water along with chopped pork skin and spices.
- Cut the meat into pieces and fry in goose fat until golden brown.
- Cut carrots, onions, peppers and garlic into small pieces and send them to the meat. We also lightly fry the vegetables.
- Put in layers on the bottom of the baking container: meat, beans, sausages. We fill all this with broth from the skin with spices, which was left from boiling the beans.
- Sprinkle with dill and rosemary herbs on top and place in the oven. We bake at 160 degrees until the moisture completely evaporates.
Duck Kasule
This French casoulet recipe is more adapted to modernity and presented in a simplified interpretation. Some components were replaced with semi-finished products, only poultry remained from the meat, which makes the dish less fatty, but in general, the technology has not lost its sense and subtlety of execution. This combination is quite capable of conveying all the versatility of the national French cuisine, to please any gourmet with an exquisite taste in a more dietary version.
Ingredients:
- Duck stew - 500 g
- Canned white beans - 250 g
- Canned red beans - 250 g
- Onions - 1 pc.
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Sweet pepper - 1 pc.
- Tomatoes - 2 pcs.
- Bacon - 100 g
- Garlic - 1 clove
- Bread crumbs - 300 g
- Salt and spices to taste
Step by step preparation of duck casule
- Cut the bacon into thin slices and fry the fat out of it in a frying pan.
- Chop the onion in half rings and send it to the bacon, add chopped garlic there.
- Cut carrots, peppers and tomatoes into cubes and add to the pan. Simmer vegetables for 15 minutes. If the juice of the vegetables is not enough, you can add a little water, the stews should not burn or be too dry.
- We wash the canned beans well in a sieve or colander under running water and divide into two parts.
- Put one part of the beans in a heat-resistant container, on top - the stew, then the second part of the beans and fried vegetables.
- Sprinkle the whole dish with breadcrumbs and bake in the oven until golden brown.
Casule with seafood
The recipe for this dish is very far from the classic one. Nevertheless, the food turns out to be unusually tasty and tender. For those who do not eat meat for various reasons, or for lovers of "seafood", this option will be very useful.
Ingredients:
- Fish fillet - 500 g
- Fresh squid rings - 200 g
- Peeled shrimp - 200 g
- Young white beans - 500 g
- Onions - 2 pcs.
- Cream - 150 g
- Butter - 100 g
- Bacon - 100 g
- Hard cheese - 150 g
- Flour - 2 tablespoons
- Salt and Provencal herbs to taste
- Lettuce - for serving
Step by step cooking casoulet with seafood:
- Soak the beans in advance for several hours, and then boil until half cooked in slightly salted water.
- Cut the bacon into small strips and fry in a pan.
- Chop the onion and add to the bacon, fry until golden brown.
- The butter should be melted in the microwave and mixed with the cream, then pour the resulting mass into our frying pan. Sprinkle with flour on top and stir to make the mass thicker.
- Then add the beans there and mix thoroughly.
- Cut the fish fillet into small cubes with a side of 1-1.5 cm.
- Fish, squid and shrimp are added last. Then the dish is sprinkled with salt and spices, stewed for 15 minutes.
- Put the resulting stew in an earthenware or heat-resistant dish, sprinkle with cheese on top and put in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees, for 15 minutes.
- After cooking, do not rush to get it out of the oven, let the dish cool and brew. You can serve in portions, spreading on lettuce leaves.
