When Andrew said he wanted to make a chicken cassoulet for Sunday night dinner I had no objections. I also had no idea what a cassoulet was, but it sounded fancy and interesting and he was going to cook it, so how could I have a problem with it?
As it turns out, cassoulet is interesting, Andrew did cook it, but it’s not really fancy. It kind of looks fancy and it has a fancy sounding name, but when you get down it, cassoulet is the French version of beans and hot dogs.
The base of this cassoulet is…I’m not sure. But it’s chock full of beans, sausage, bacon, and chicken and I to say this meal is hearty is not an understatement. It slow cooked in the oven for five or six hours and when it came out, the top was a bubbling, black crust.
This was a many step process that involved bacon and browning chicken and simmering beans. I couldn’t keep track of how many things went in and out of the pot, but it made the house smell amazing. A traditional cassoulet usually has duck and pork or whatever meat was around. However, in our neck of the woods duck isn’t the most readily available (or cheap) option, but chicken is. The recipe Andrew found online uses chicken and even though I’ve never had a traditional cassoulet, this version was still pretty good.
We seemed to have found the most gigantic chicken legs ever. Not sure what those chickens were doing…leg presses?
This is what it looks like under that crackily crust. We think it was supposed to be a little thinner, with a little more broth. But the chicken was so tender that we were able to scoop it off the bones with a plastic spoon. The beans were soft and creamy and there was so much flavor in this dish that I have to say it outdoes a can of baked beans and hot dogs.