This is the original recipe of Alain Dutournier and it is served at « Le Trou Gascon » in Paris. It was the favourite dish of Orson Wells who used to come specialy to eat it at “Le Trou Gascon”. My old Friend Alain has authorized me to use his recipe. Here is the story:

Cassoulet in the South-West of France is a revered subject; it is as sacred as the “Holy Grail”! I’m giving you a short history of the most argued dish in France and my own recipe, which is certainly the closest to the real thing, but where to find the real cassoulet?

Hasting, Trafalgar, and other trifle are inconsequential compare to one of the issue the French most venerate. Served in small auberges to the most prestigious tables of France, each mother, family, village, town, and district, is the secret keeper of the true recipe. Castelnaudary is the self-appointed capital of Cassoulet, vigorously disputed by the others. The only way to have a real Cassoulet is to ask a Parisian to prepare it, with no tie to these different schools of thoughts!

Cassoulet comes from the word ”cassole” or varnished oven-proof pottery dish. The most important ingredient is the type of beans used, selected by ”L’Ordre Souverain des Taste-Mounjettes” of Toulouse, or “The Sovereign Order of Beans Tasters” of Toulouse! Originally, before beans came from the Americas in the XVI century, fresh broad beans were used. I use “haricots de mais” called as well “haricots tarbais”, beloved of my friend Alain Dutournier (from Les Landes, another Cassoulet area’s best!). These beans grow in the fields between the rows of corn and are picked by the young maidens in the late September afternoons. Cooked slowly, they are moist and melt in the mouth.

Next of course is the type of meat, another great argument. I have settled for a shoulder of Hampshire lamb which is perfect (Was Aquitaine not English after all?) and pork rind, both very lean. Then come the sausages but which? There I used imported products, I personally prefer the “saucisses de Toulouse”. My friend Dutournier’s favorite is “saucisse de couenne” or sausages made with pork rind. Then I add some good old Pyrenees dry ham. In particular if I can find some, the crosse or end cut by the hock. To culminate the dish, some legs and gizzards confit from fatten ducks from Chalosse. A little glass of dry white wine adds the ”je ne sais quoi”! Of course, don’t forget the omnipresent garlic, nice fat cloves, but use it sparingly, not to kill the other flavours and a little wild thyme.

All the ingredients are cooked very slowly with love and passion, alas no more in the baker’s oven like our grand mothers used to do for the Sunday meal. No bread crumbs to form the golden crust on the dish, real sacrilege, but beans and pork rind mashed with a fork and gently scatter over it.
Obviously my style of Cassoulet will be argued by many, which is the right thing to do, to keep traditions alive.

Where to find the best Cassoulet in France?
According to Premier food guide “Champerard”,… “With apologies to the people of Castelnaudary, the undisputed best Cassoulet in Paris and perhaps the best in France, can be found, at the “Trou Gascon”- sic -…… where Alain Dutournier taught me his recipe.

To drink:
Gascony’s great red wine, a rustic Madiran from Alain Brumont.