Cassoulet

Cassoulet from The Butcher. This book is part of a Providore series, so we have a couple of the other books in the series, The Dairy and The Green Grocer. They all are pretty great, but to be fair we have  yet to cook anything out of them .. until now. Enter cassoulet - this was one of those French dishes that were on our must eat in France last year, as well as our Champagne a day rule (tough rules we set ourselves). Unfortunately towards the end of the trip cassoulet was still on the 'to try' list.

We ignored all of the locals restaurant recommendations and strolled into an authentic looking tourist trap in Bordeaux.

Now for future references we will know the correct terminology.

 




It came complete with gingham table cloths, rude etchings on the menu and copper pots swinging from the walls. Not the most delicious restaurant, the cassoulet here was heart burn inducing.  I much prefer the version we made.

So we are lucky that this one here was a winner. Four meats, toulouse and french boiled sausage, confit duck and lamb, with some haricot beans for good measure.





Verdict: Great winter meal, very warming.

Would we make this again?: Yeah, I can imagine making this to impress my Dad. Four meats and beans, I'll just have to be sure not to sit too close to him on the couch after dinner!

Parsnip chips

Recently we had a little shuffle around the kitchen, ended up moving the microwave out into the laundry (we were only really using it to soften butter anyway) to give ourselves a little more bench space. It was a day before that the suggestion of getting a deep fryer was put forward by a bright spark -perhaps it could fill the microwave shaped gap on our bench? A deep fryer is really not necessary, but we could forced to reconsider our stance considering that Troy's little parsnip chips from Mr Wilkinson's Favourite Vegetables were delightful.

Some baby beets were added in the mix with the parsnip sliced thinly, and fried in canola oil. They were served as a garnish on our dinner of lamb terrine, cauliflower puree, quick pickled cauliflower (also from this cookbook) potato and chorizo gratin and the crunchy chips on top.













Verdict: Yum.
Would we make this again?: All fried foods to be in moderation, but I wouldn't turn down a bowl of these with a couple of beers to wash them down with.