Tuesday September 29
The salt pork required attention on Tuesday, I was a bit apprehensive about discovering rancid meat, but the pork smelled strongly of bay from the cure which seemed to have worked as it should. I tipped off about 100 millilitres of the liquid that had been drawn out of the pork, the belly was fairly rigid, I applied more cure and this time I placed it skin side down in the container then returned it to the fridge. Two more days to wait.
Since I was working from home I decided to test an new recipe for baked beans starting from 700 g of dried haricot beans that I had leftover from something else. I think I have identified the first problem in my cassoulet plan, that is that there is no way one kilogram of cooked haricot beans and about another one and a half kilograms of meat are going to fit into my 28 centimeter round Chassseur French oven. The recipe fails to mention size of the cassole/casserole needed to prepare the completed dish. Damn.
Thursday October 1
A quick examination of the salt pork showed that while mostly firm it was a but squishy in places. I applied some fresh cure and will check it again on Saturday.
Friday October 2
I got the Accountant to pick up some pork sausages from the Lyneham Meat Centre on the way to my house, apparently their sausages are fairly awesome and it was especially fortuitous that they had Toulouse-style sausages. I picked up the rest of the ingredients today too, a just finished ham bone from Deli Cravings at the Belconnen Fresh Food Market and some lean pork.
Saturday October 3
Three tasks today, soak the beans, wash and wrap the salt pork and defrost the duck stock.
The salt pork was uniformly rigid after an additional two days in the cure; it hadn't lost much more liquid but it seemed more compact. I washed off all the cure, dried it well, wrapped it in a clean cotton tea towel and returned it to the fridge.
The fact I made duck stock in June and need the freezer space so I can use my ice cream maker was a significant motivating factor for Labour Day cassoulet. To make the stock I used the carcass of a roasted duck, wing-tips and a skinless neck (I rendered the fat from the neck skin earlier), covered the duck parts with water and simmered for at least in hour; I prefer to make neutral stocks so I rarely add aromatics - they can be usually added later anyway. From this I got about one and a half liters of stock.
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