Wild Cassoulet: Bean Stew with Venison Loukaniko Sausage

At a memorial dinner for the late Jim Harrison at Livingston Montana’s Second Street Bistro in the fall of 2016, Head Chef Brian Menges served an entrée he thought capable of honoring the world-renowned writer and lover of life better than any other dish possibly could. The dish was a cassoulet, an elaborate bean stew with origins in twelfth century France, and it was a fitting tribute for a man who lived with the gusto that Harrison was famous for.

The traditionally prepared cassoulet is nothing short of a culinary masterpiece. According to a superbly written article by Chris Dombrowksi in Outside Magazine, the one that Menges served to Harrison’s friends and family on that fall Montana day took no less than eight hours to prepare and included a mouth-watering amalgamation of duck confit, pork sausage and white beans—all encapsulated beneath a crispy layer of oven roasted duck fat. It was part of a five course feast that included Mediterranean fish stew, duck paté, and seven different types of cheesecakes for dessert.

For my first foray into the indulgent world of cassoulet cooking, I had to forgo the signature confit and the copious additions of duck fat that the dish is famous for, opting instead for what I could find within the dwindling reserves of my catch-all chest freezer. This meant a cassoulet made from turkey meat —slowly cooked down off the carcass of a bird I’d butchered and then frozen back in November— three pounds of venison loukaniko sausage—which I mixed, stuffed and smoked about a month prior—and two pounds of butter beans.

The result was a considerably leaner cassoulet with a nod to Southern cooking a la the butter beans and a taste of the wild compliments of the venison loukaniko sausage. While it may be lacking some of the essential fattiness found in more traditional versions of the dish, I believe Harrison would approve of this unique take on an ancient French favorite.

A Southern Cassoulet with Turkey and Loukaniko Sausage

Ingredients

• 3 lbs venison loukaniko sausage cut into coins

• 2 lbs boneless dark turkey meat

• 6 slices bacon

• 2 quarts of turkey stock, or whatever homemade stock you have on hand

• 1 bulb of garlic
• 1 yellow onion

• 1 medium sized turnip

• 4 parsnips

• 4 medium sized carrots

• 2 cups lacinato kale, chopped

• 4 sprigs of thyme

• salt
• pepper

Before we begin, a quick note on stock making.

For me, this recipe began in a stock pot. A solid twenty four hours before I started assembling the cassoulet, I was cooking down the meaty carcass of a previously butchered bird that had already lived out its Thanksgiving Day Glory.

First, I doused the turkey carcass with a liberal coating of olive oil, a heavy application of salt and a light smattering of fresh cracked black pepper.Then I roasted it off in a 425 degree oven for about 35 minutes. Once the carcass was nice and crispy, I put it in the largest stock pot I own, submerged it in water, added a few cups of mirepoix (fancy French cooking term for chopped carrots, onions and celery), along with a hefty tablespoon of peppercorns, two head of garlic cut width-wise down the middle and more salt, and let the whole mess simmer overnight and well into the next day.

After the liquid was stained and the meat carefully separated from the bones, I was left with several pints of rich, dark turkey stock and two pounds of boneless turkey meat. Both the meat and the stock would form the foundation of the cassoulet to come.

Procedure

• Set the turkey meat aside and begin cooking the bacon in a dutch oven. Cook and reserve bacon, then brown the turkey in the hot fat left behind. Once the turkey is browned and infused with all the goodness of the bacon fat, set it aside for future use.
• Roughly chop the carrots, onion, parsnips, and turnips, season with salt and pepper, and cook in the remaining bacon fat with 6 cloves of chopped garlic. Cook until tender.
• Add browned turkey meat back into the Dutch oven along with tomatoes, kale, 2 quarts of turkey stock, and one half quart water. Then add butter beans, 3 sprigs of thyme, 2 bay leaves and salt to taste.
• Allow this to reduce for 45 minutes over medium heat, then cover the Dutch oven and place it in a 325 degree oven for 90 minutes.

• After 90 minutes, remove the Dutch oven and add the venison sausage. Mix the cassoulet thoroughly and return it to the oven with the lid of for another 45 minutes. A final bake with the lid off will lend the cassoulet a crispy brown crust. Some cassoulet recipes call for repeating this process several times, pulling it from the oven at the end of each bake and adding more broth to compensate for evaporation. If you notice that your cassoulet is less brothy than you’d like at the end of the 45 minute, lid-off bake, add some more turkey stock and let it cook for another ten minutes or so.
• Serve your cassoulet in bowls, with the reserve bacon chopped and sprinkled on top, alongside some crusty bread and a glass of sauvignon blanc or a hoppy pale ale.