The Busy Gourmand

This version of the cassoulet leaves all the stirring, poking, and prodding of a typical cassoulet recipe to the slow cooking of the crock pot. The only real cooking you do is browning the meat before putting it in the pot. This recipe calls for lamb and sausage. You can substitute just about any other type of meat for the lamb. I happened to have leftover roast lamb.

1 pound lamb, pork, beef or chicken, cut into large chunks
2 kielbasa style sausages, or any other kind of sausage
1/2 red onion in large dice
1 carrot in large dice
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
4 cups of chicken stock
2 cups of dried white beans, great northern would be a good choice, if using canned reduce the cooking time by a couple of hours
2 bay leaves
2 springs of fresh thyme
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

If the meat you are using is not preroasted you will want to brown the outside of the meat first. Place it in a saute pan with a bit of olive oil and cook until just brown on the outside, about 5 minutes should do. You also want to brown the outside of the sausage, cooking about 2 or 3 minutes per side, not fully cooking the sausage.

Here comes the difficult part, place all the ingredients in a crock pot making sure the sausage and meat is submerged in the stock. Turn the crock pot on low and cook for 7 to 8 hours or until the beans are just tender but no mushy.

The traditional cassoulet calls for finishing by cooking croutons on top of the mixture. In a crock pot this will not work obviously. I would cut 4 thick slices of french bread, top them with a bit of cheese, and brown them for about 10 minutes or less in a 400 degree oven. You can serve the toasted bread on the side of the dish.

This dish makes 4 hearty portions.